In case you didn’t hear, two different workers in the AI industry have recently predicted a very good chance that AI could destroy all human life in the next decade. Yep, we’ve created something that people on the inside of that technology business predict could quite probably eradicate human life as we know it.

What does this have to do with The Ended World? Well, this fascinating novel, which intrigued me from page one and never ceased to delight me, involves—among other things—a young man who studies modern technology and grows up to invent an AI tool that becomes a sentient being. And that artificial consciousness, and its aims, really worry the young man.

Cue the Twilight Zone theme song.

Now, all that is cool, but plenty of books have had plots that are “ripped from the headlines,” though they were written years earlier. That is not why I’m reviewing The Ended World. What most contemporary novels don’t do—really almost never do—is to surprise me. The Ended World surprised me again and again. The author never takes the easy route, she never “phones it in” as actors say about mediocre acting. She always chooses to go deeper into these characters and to expose the specific and personal ways we humans both long for and fear change.

Grant also takes on faith, both the everyday faith that keeps us going in life, and the religious faith that propels church-going people, and perhaps inspires saints like St Clare of Assisi. Did I mention there is a medieval saint in The Ended World?

I just took a walk to clear my head and a good friend who is a fine writer called. I shared with her how hard this review was to write. Most reviews of good books are not that hard to write. I explain that it is a memoir about this or that subject, or that it is a genre book, or a work of literary fiction in a certain style. But reading experiences that make you rethink your opinions and perhaps your philosophy of life, those are the hard ones to sum up. Obviously, The Ended World was such a book for me.

Having said all that, I don’t want you to think the novel is too serious, though it deals with such weighty themes. It is sometimes profound, but quite beautifully written; it is wry and and insightful, but also quite witty. I have not read any of Libbie Grant’s other works, so I can’t compare it to her previous output, but The Ended World reminded me of Ursula LeGuin and Emily St John Mandel, with a touch of Tom Robbins and Salman Rushdie, blended with Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Cinematic, in the best way, meaning it does not try to be anything but what it is—gorgeous prose about this specific moment in time.

The novel was published by Galiot Press, a new independent press that published one of the best books I read last year, Sex of the Midwest by Robyn Ryle. Robin just published a great interview with Libbie Grant, This is a story about AI you have not heard before. So worth the time, especially for writers with manuscripts they are working on right now. There are so many fascinating themes in The Ended World; I read the book about a month ago (I got an ARC in order to review it from NetGalley) and I am thinking about it still.

I sincerely hope this book finds the wide readership it deserves. It should provoke some excellent conversations about AI, faith, writing, and just, you know, LIFE.