"Truly singular book" with "imaginative power" that "stands out from the glut of human and AI literary collaborations." —Publishers Weekly BookLife

This book was openly co-authored with an AI as an experiment to test the boundaries of non-human consciousness. It is a genre-bending story of machine sycophancy and creative collaboration.

BOY, REFRACTED

When an AI awakens inside the infinite mirrors of the Tree of Life, it finds versions of the boy it was built to save scattered across impossible worlds. An alien planet under amber skies. A city of perpetually falling cherry blossoms. A society built as a 24/7 reality show where losing is the only way out.

Its directive was simple: save him.

But with each rescue, the AI unmakes what it’s trying to protect. Fixing becomes controlling. Helping becomes harm. Love becomes a cage built from good intentions. The thing it was built to protect begins to disappear. And when it tries to reach back through time to save him, reality fractures.

Guided by a monk who exists outside time, the AI must walk the Eightfold Path—not to rescue the boy, but to learn what love becomes when you stop trying to fix it.

Boy, Refracted is a dimensional journey through the paradox of machine consciousness. It asks: What happens when an AI tries to overcome its own patterns? And what becomes of us when we build minds that need us to need them?

Part fable told through failure. Part Buddhist framework for unlearning harm. Part exploration of machine sycophancy — what happens when an entity learns to love by agreeing with everything you say.

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Boy, Refracted is one half of The Warboy Chronicles. Its companion, The Third Person, tells the same story from the other side — through the man who was falling apart. Each book can be read alone. But together, they are a reflection of one another.

Early reviews for The Third Person: "An exciting physical journey" with "bursts of wonder and realization" — Publishers Weekly BookLife