Hugh Howey Lives by Daniel Arthur Smith

From Goodreads

In 2174 authors are obsolete. With the exception of a few human ‘Author’ titles printed in the small basement and back room Libraries, all stories are created by the Artificial Intelligence of the Archive. Most believe the ‘Authors’ are only brands to lure people into spending their credits on print. One woman believes that one of them, author Hugh Howey, is real, and still alive. Her Librarian feeds her belief that Hugh Howey is still sailing around the world, uploading his work to the Archive. Convinced she has found clues in his stories as to where he now resides, she and her girlfriend sail to an island, where she believes Hugh Howey lives.

My thoughts 

9/10 great concept. I received a free copy of this story for signing up to Smith's website. My review is in now way influenced by this fact and is written from the heart.

I love dystopian themed books and this certainly fits that bill nicely. Imagine a future where very few books are written by humans and the majority are churned out for want of a better word by a Computer.

Tia and Kay are a couple, Tia is keen on photography and Kay is a budding Author. Kay is an avid reader too and with the help of her local Librarian, she begins to put together a few clues that lead her to believe that Hugh Howey is still alive, making him to be almost 200 years old.

Tia and Kay embark on a journey to go in search of him.

Whilst, there is lots more I could say about the storyline I'm not going to as it will give away too much of the plot and I hate that in reviews.

I really enjoyed this well written story that came about due to Daniel Arthur Smith reading a blog by Hugh Howey titled 'Humans Need Not Apply'. Howey in his blog speculated that in a 100 years time computers would be writing stories and that Auhtors would become obsolete. This obviously hit a nerve with Smith and got his creative juices flowing, so he e-mailed Howey with a pitch with a slightly different take on the idea and voila this story is the result.

As you read the story you can feel the tension building, as we begin to inhabit a future world with the characters and all that they experience on their travels.

The story is now available to purchase in e-book or tree book form.