*An up-all-night slice of Halloween horror, perfect for fans of Stephen King, Black Mirror, and Frankenstein*
‘Best thing I’ve read this year . . . Just superb. Unsettling in the most beautiful way’ Will Dean, author of The Last Passenger
‘Probes at the fears for our future and provokes the terrors of our pasts . . . terrifying’ Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies
Henry, a brilliant but reclusive engineer, has achieved the crowning discovery of his career: he’s created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He names the half-formed robot William.
But there’s something strange about William.
It’s not that his skin feels like balloon rubber and is the colour of curdled milk, nor is it his thick gurgling laugh or the way his tongue curls towards his crooked top teeth. It is the way he looks at Henry’s wife, Lily.
Henry created William but he is starting to lose control of him. As William’s fixation with Lily grows and threatens to bring harm to their house, Henry has no choice but to destroy William.
But William isn’t gone. Filled with jealousy for humanity, for its capacity to love and create life, William starts to haunt the house.
He lurks behind each locked door. You can hear him muttering in the eaves of the attic. He is whispering in Henry’s head. And he will be the one to take control . . .
William is a new kind of ghost story, where the haunting is not from another world, but from inside your home. Inside your head . . .
‘A gauntlet of thrills and surprises’ Gus Moreno, author of This Thing Between Us
‘From its first page all the way to its jaw-dropping ending, William had me hooked’ Nick Cutter, author of The Troop and The Deep
‘A gripping page-turner that makes you think’ Araminta Hall, author of One of the Good Guys
‘Best thing I’ve read this year . . . Just superb. Unsettling in the most beautiful way’ Will Dean, author of The Last Passenger
‘Probes at the fears for our future and provokes the terrors of our pasts . . . terrifying’ Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies
Henry, a brilliant but reclusive engineer, has achieved the crowning discovery of his career: he’s created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He names the half-formed robot William.
But there’s something strange about William.
It’s not that his skin feels like balloon rubber and is the colour of curdled milk, nor is it his thick gurgling laugh or the way his tongue curls towards his crooked top teeth. It is the way he looks at Henry’s wife, Lily.
Henry created William but he is starting to lose control of him. As William’s fixation with Lily grows and threatens to bring harm to their house, Henry has no choice but to destroy William.
But William isn’t gone. Filled with jealousy for humanity, for its capacity to love and create life, William starts to haunt the house.
He lurks behind each locked door. You can hear him muttering in the eaves of the attic. He is whispering in Henry’s head. And he will be the one to take control . . .
William is a new kind of ghost story, where the haunting is not from another world, but from inside your home. Inside your head . . .
‘A gauntlet of thrills and surprises’ Gus Moreno, author of This Thing Between Us
‘From its first page all the way to its jaw-dropping ending, William had me hooked’ Nick Cutter, author of The Troop and The Deep
‘A gripping page-turner that makes you think’ Araminta Hall, author of One of the Good Guys
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Reviews
Mason Coile's William is twisted, timely, scarily intelligent, and menacing even before it reveals its greatest, darkest secrets
Coile locks you in the smart home of your nightmares, and inside is a gauntlet of thrills and surprises that'll have you looking over your shoulder till the very end. If reading with one hand over your mouth is your thing, this is the book for you
From its first page all the way to its jaw-dropping ending, William had me hooked. I mainlined this book in one sitting, loving the tragically endearing protagonist Coile had created while marvelling at the whip-smart plotting
A gripping page-turner that makes you think, William gets you by the throat and doesn't let go until it has spun you through some of your darkest fears. Mason Coile has written a modern-day Frankenstein for our digital age that grapples with the notion of consciousness and what makes a human
A deliciously terrifying book about creation and its false promise of control, William exposes the harrowing consequences of playing god. Coile demolishes the idea that our homes and identities are safe in a fully automated world. I dare you to read this in more than one sitting
Dark, clever, and terrifying, I devoured Coile's novel. If you're not afraid of AI now, you will be after William
I read and enjoyed William in a single sitting, as if it were a story from a classic horror comic, or a new episode in a favourite film franchise at Halloween. Impressive horror as entertainment, yet twinned with insights into male identity and original speculations on the consequences of playing God with tech
A smart home turns into a house of horrors in this suspenseful outing from Coile . . . Coile expertly imagines the sort of ghoulish snares a cybernetic environment could spring upon its unprepared captives and throws in a late-inning explanation for the source of William's apparent sociopathy that is as believable as it is chilling. It's a frightening Frankenstein fable for the age of AI
Moments of this cinematic tale truly terrify . . . Coile maximises his premise's inherent tension using nightmare imagery and an uneasy third-person-present narration shot through with powerlessness, paranoia, and dread. Gleefully lurid fun
A book that probes at the fears for our future and provokes the terrors of our pasts - William asks, if the things we make reflect us, what does that say about what we are? Also - it's f***ing terrifying
Best thing I've read this year. WILD. Frankenstein meets Rosemary's Baby with hints of Shirley Jackson. Just superb. Unsettling in the most beautiful way
With the nightmarish intensity of the best horror films, this page-turner taps into our fears about AI and technology
Incredible. A superb concept and brilliantly executed
The uncanny aspect of AI is front and center in William, Mason Coile's slim, gripping novel about the horror of watching software embrace its will to power . . . he has crafted a cyber-horror tale that combines cerebrality and carnage, a twist on The Shining in which the house is haunted by a ghost in the machine . . . The action is cinematic, complete with jump scares and bloodshed sufficient to satisfy any gore hound. Shopworn as these elements are, Coile elevates them with meticulously unsettling prose and a knowing dissection of character that transcends stereotype
I'm a sucker for the quiet, noir-ish terror of Black Mirror. If you're a fan of slow-burn horror books too, William is for you . . . For fans of I, Robot by Isaac Asimov and the Black Mirror Netflix horror series
This new AI horror story is a book you won't be able to put down
Mason Coile's William couldn't arrive at a more relevant time, as the book tackles the subject of AI using a haunted house narrative. William offers yet another unique twist on a haunted house story, and its themes make it ideal for a modern-day audience. William is bound to be a hot topic of discussion throughout the fall 2024 season, especially with the recent discussions surrounding AI
The alternating short and shorter chapters keep the action tearing along, rather like cuts in a movie, as the temerity to meddle with existence undoes most of the characters. Coile/Pyper toys with heavy ideas about responsibility; the mechanics of escape and the notion of the Uncanny Valley, the phenomenon of disquiet in the face of humanlike objects that aren't quite realistic. Is it the absence of something that creates the dissonance or is it the presence of something evil? By the end of William you will know the answer. And then you'll want to read it again
Short, sharp and packing a cleverly constructed last act surprise
Creepy, clever and unsettling. If you want something both classically spooky and terrifyingly timely this Halloween, this may well fit the bill
Truly weird and scary
This sounds like my perfect Halloween read - an AI twist on Frankenstein
A gripping, AI-infused take on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Its chilling final twist will have you turning directly back to the first page
A brilliantly plotted story combining horror tropes, suspense and metaphysical speculation about the nature of the soul . . . a terrifying, thought-provoking read