Barnes & Noble in the States, flight to catch, no chunky book in the carry-on — I'd left Onyx Storm at home, which was its own small fiasco. Asked ChatGPT, like everyone now does and almost no one admits, to point me at something good and not weepy.
Walked out with four books. Found out later, talking to a different AI, that all four are polyphonic — voices interrupting each other inside a single paragraph, sometimes a single sentence. ChatGPT never said the word. It just knew the shape.
I picked two of them — City of Last Chances and The Overstory — without asking. Half the haul was just me, then.
The AI didn't choose a book for me. It made my taste visible to me, faster than I'd have got there alone. Help isn't the right word for what that is. Mirror is closer.
maria · 13 may