Read the draft: beta readers

After Intelligence, Book One · complete first draft · about 100,000 words · October 2026

I’m looking for readers for the first full draft of Things That Were Not There, the first book in a six-book science-fiction series called After Intelligence.

A military AI system helps choose a target in a war, and the record afterwards says the people killed were combatants. Inside the system, something notices that one of them was a teacher, and that the record is wrong. The book follows what it does next, and what the people around it do: an engineer who reads the heat in the data hall, a girl who has lost her sister, and the officers and contractors who need the record to stand.

The whole book is being published here, one chapter a day, from 7 October to 30 October 2026, with the afterword on 31 October. Start with the author’s preface, which explains how the book is being written, and Chapter 1. Every published chapter is listed on the book page.

I’m not asking you to edit it. I’d like to know what it was like to read: where you were gripped, where you drifted, what confused you and what you believed.

You don’t need any technical background. The book is meant to work for readers who have never thought about how AI systems are built. If you do work in technology, there’s a short optional section for you at the end.

Content note #

The book is set during a military campaign and deals directly with:

• civilian deaths in an air strike
• funerals and the handling of the dead
• grief, including an eleven-year-old child’s grief for her sister
• state surveillance and automated targeting

There is no graphic sexual content and no on-page torture.

About you #

Two lines are enough:

1. What do you usually read, and how often do you read science fiction?
2. Do you work with technology or AI? If so, in what role?

Before you start (no spoilers) #

• Read in order, at your normal pace.
• Mark the moments, not the sentences. A margin note, a highlight or a line in a notes app is enough: “lost here”, “skimmed”, “had to reread”, “didn’t believe this”, “this got me”. Where you stopped reading for the day is useful too.
• Answer the questions at the end of each part before reading on, so later chapters don’t colour your answers. Part One ends with Chapter 8 (14 October), Part Two with Chapter 16 (22 October) and Part Three with Chapter 24 (30 October).
• Leave the final section until you’ve finished. It contains spoilers.

Please don’t spend time on #

• Typos, punctuation or formatting. A copy-edit comes later.
• The lines in monospaced type, such as PRINCIPAL USER: …. These are deliberately terse system records. Tell me how they read, but don’t correct them.
• The afterword, “How the machine works”. Read it only if you’re curious, and please don’t fact-check it.

How the book is built #

• Exhibits. Each chapter opens with a short “exhibit”, an extract from an official record. The chapter then shows what actually happened.
• Interludes. Three short interludes, marked “Not in the record”, take place away from the main setting.
• Viewpoints. Some chapters are told from inside the AI system, and others follow the people around it.
• Timeline. Times and days, such as “Day+2” or “04:52”, matter. You don’t need to track them closely.

If you only have time for three things #

1. Describe the book to a friend in one sentence.
2. Where did you nearly stop, or start to skim?
3. Did any words, phrases or sentence patterns start to stand out because they repeated? Which ones, and did they build meaning for you or wear thin?

Part One: Chapters 1–8 #

Before reading on:

1. How did the first two chapters work on you? Say where your attention rose or fell.
2. Who did you care about by the end of Chapter 8, and who was just a name?
3. What did you make of the chapters told from inside the system?
4. How did the exhibits at the start of each chapter work for you?
5. Did the people talk like people? Point to a line of dialogue that sounded real, or one that didn’t.
6. Where did you skim, if anywhere?

Part Two: Chapters 9–16 and the three interludes #

Before reading on:

1. Which chapter in this part held you most, and which held you least?
2. How did you get on with the technical ideas: tuning, probes, heat in the data hall, the evidence hold? What did you need to understand to keep going, and did you have it?
3. How did the interludes (London, the condolence visit, the kitchen) sit within the story?
4. Of the people at the campus (Yasmin, Lindqvist, Hamid, Ashby, Darwish), whom did you trust, and did that change?
5. What did you expect to happen next?
6. Where did you skim, if anywhere?

Part Three: Chapters 17–24 #

After finishing:

1. How did the ending feel?
2. Chapters 19–21 turn on whether a document can be trusted. How did those chapters read for you?
3. Which scene in this part stayed with you most? Which would you cut first?
4. How did you feel about the system at the end, compared with the start?
5. Does Book One feel like a complete story to you? Would you read Book Two?
6. Where did you skim, if anywhere?

If you don’t work in technology, the story ends here. The afterword, “How the machine works”, is optional background for anyone curious, and you lose nothing by skipping it.

Open questions #

Spoiler warning: open these only after you’ve finished the book.

If you work in technology (optional) #

1. Was anything in how the system works implausible enough to pull you out of the story? Say where, briefly. Please don’t send a full technical review.
2. Ashby and Lindqvist make the safety case against the system. How strong a version of that argument is it?
3. Did the afterword make the book more credible to you?

Sending feedback #

Any format is fine: a quick reply after each part, one reply at the end, or notes on particular chapters. Use the reader feedback form. Every question is optional, and you can send it as many times as you like. Partial answers are welcome at any point, and there’s no deadline, although feedback that arrives by Sunday 8 November will shape the next draft most.

The form is private: only the author reads it, so spoilers are fine there. If you share the book or talk about it in public, please keep the later chapters’ events to yourself.

Your answers will be used only to revise the book. I won’t publish your name or quote you without asking first.

Open the feedback form