The intense dystopian world-building of John Twelve Hawks (The Traveler) returns with a masterful journey through the near future of Artificial Intelligence, in which a wise, orphaned ten-year-old girl goes on the run with only her trusty “Interactive Toy” to guide her toward New York City, where a dark landscape, and perhaps a hidden hero, await her.
In a post-pandemic future where AI has infiltrated daily life, the line between what is real and what is digital has eroded to nothing. As Manhattan is overrun by wireheads who spend their days literally plugged into virtual reality, algorithms and robots have replaced everything from the criminal justice system to individual loved ones.
Gripping, intricately plotted, and delightfully imaginative, Certainty is a profound and eerily prescient novel about the ever-blurring line between man and machine. Amid the murder investigation of a gifted AI robot-maker, a missing-person being tracked down in the darkest corners of virtual reality, and Kate’s harrowing journey to New York, John Twelve Hawks’s novel explores the spectacular humanity to be found in a world where humans are themselves endangered.
The Critics Agree
Booklist
“In his first novel in more than a decade, John Twelve Hawks imagines a near future in which AI is an integral part of a post-pandemic society. The author follows several story lines, alternating between them. A 10-year-old orphan flees her foster home; an investigator looks into the murder of a highly sought-after designer of custom-made robots; a missing-person case points to a remote, shadowy part of a virtual-reality environment.
Readers who have been waiting for a new book by the reclusive author, who keeps his real identity a closely-guarded secret, will not be disappointed. This is a magnificent novel set in a world that is both recognizably our own but at the same time markedly different. As the various seemingly separate story lines begin to merge, we start to get a picture of a society fractured by its own technological advances, in which humans have essentially given over control of their lives to algorithms and machines. The book stands alongside the author’s Fourth Realm trilogy as a brilliant examination of the way our future might play out.”
Book Reporter
“The intense dystopian world-building of John Twelve Hawks (THE TRAVELER) returns with a masterful journey through the near future of Artificial Intelligence, in which a wise, orphaned 10-year-old girl goes on the run with only her trusty “Interactive Toy” to guide her toward New York City, where a dark landscape, and perhaps a hidden hero, await her.
In a post-pandemic future where AI has infiltrated daily life, the line between what is real and what is digital has eroded to nothing. As Manhattan is overrun by wireheads who spend their days literally plugged into virtual reality, algorithms and robots have replaced everything from the criminal justice system to individual loved ones.
As long as she can remember, 10-year-old Kate has felt like someone was watching her. She has been orphaned since the pandemic, her foster parents find her eccentric and off-putting, and her legal guardian is nowhere to be seen. Now, an algorithm has predicted the very worst — within 30 days, Kate will either be killed, or become a killer. When two police officers arrive at her home in Maine intending to implant her with a tracking device, Kate is urged by her trusted AI Interactive Toy (a talking stuffed seal named Zeno) to make an immediate escape. Confused and looking for answers, the girl sets a course for New York City and begins an Orwellian journey into the unknown.
Gripping, intricately plotted and delightfully imaginative, CERTAINTY is a profound and eerily prescient novel about the ever-blurring line between man and machine. Amid the murder investigation of a gifted AI robot-maker, a missing-person being tracked down in the darkest corners of virtual reality, and Kate’s harrowing journey to New York, John Twelve Hawks’ novel explores the spectacular humanity to be found in a world where humans are themselves endangered.”
Library Journal
“The newest dystopian novel from Twelve Hawks (“Fourth Realm” trilogy) delivers everything that readers have come to expect from his work. In a near, post-pandemic future, AI is an integral part of society. A neural implant jack allows people to spend their days literally plugged in to virtual reality, and algorithms and robots have displaced many humans in the workplace and taken over almost every aspect of daily life, including the criminal justice system. Ten-year-old Kate, an orphan whose parents died in the Stem flu, flees her foster home in Maine at the urging of Zeno, her trusted stuffed seal Interactive Toy, when police come to implant a tracking device in her because an algorithm has predicted that she will either be killed or become a killer within the next 30 days. Kate and Zeno must then embark on a harrowing journey to New York City to find her mysterious guardian.
VERDICT: Detailed worldbuilding, intricate plotlines, and realistic characters combine to describe an all-too-easily imagined future and create a novel that is simultaneously engaging, thought-provoking, and terrifying. A reminder of the importance of humanity in the age of machines, the book will appeal to fans of George Orwell and Michael Crichton.”