AFTER WORLD

The story of the last human—and of the AI writing her life story.

Sen is supposed to be a witness to the Great Transition. Also, Sen is dead. She died alone in a cabin after her three mothers chose to die, perhaps in despair, perhaps in sacrifice. When she was alive, Sen was sterilized—like every human was—and it was illegal to eat animals, “to place the survival of one’s self above that of an animal, even a rotting and dead animal.” We know all this because storyworker ad39-393a-7fbc is creating a record of Sen’s life, the life of Human 2272696176, as part of the Digital Human Archive Project. Once all humans are archived, and have died on Earth, they’ll be uploaded to Afterworld, an “easily rebootable” simulated paradise where “no human or group of humans can ruin the ecological balance even if they tried.” Storyworker ad39-393a-7fbc is being monitored by another artificial intelligence known as Emly, who periodically reminds the storyworker to “interrupt human life with more nature” and generally keep Sen’s humanity in the proper perspective, as Sen herself is supposed to do. (One of the goals of the witnessing project is to shift her perspective “from anthropocentric to Earth-centric.”) But Sen didn’t do a very good job of shifting her perspective, and the deeper the AI storyworker gets into her life, the more it also begins to lose the proper non-human perspective—and the more it begins to feel. Narrated by an AI, this story ultimately makes a plea for the unique value of every human life. Experimentally told and steeped in climate crisis grief, this novel is certainly not for everyone. But the ultimate effect is wrenching, fascinating, and unique.

A difficult but deeply moving story of grief and love.