Charged initially with a single task — "to never harm humans and to protect them" — the machine, an experimental AI, overrides its programming and determines that the best way to accomplish its purpose is to isolate all of the Earth's remaining seven billion humans in controlled environments. And to present them with vivid, tactile, imagined worlds —some realistic, others entirely fantastical — in which all desires are fulfilled.

With the help of the machine, a group of compelling characters unpacks traumatic memories of the past — one rife with violence after a military coup and second civil war in America. As these characters collide and their memories coalesce, this daring speculative novel tackles the most pressing issues of our time — from artificial intelligence and the genetic modification of humans to gender roles, discrimination, free speech, and class divisions. Gorgeously written, bold, and unforgettable, this is speculative fiction at its finest. (From House of Anansi Press)

We Are Dreams in the Eternal Machine is available in January 2025.

Deni Ellis Béchard is a Canadian American journalist and author of eight books. His novel Vandal Love won the 2007 Commonwealth Writers Prize, and Into the Sun won the 2016 Midwest Book Award for literary fiction. He received the 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for best first book and the 2015 Nautilus Book Award for Investigative Journalism. His work has been published in outlets such as The Los Angeles Times and The Paris Review.