Mason Coile is a pseudonym of Andrew Pyper, the award-winning author of ten novels including The Demonologist, which won the International Thriller Writers Award, and Lost Girls, which was a New York Times bestseller and Notable Book of the Year. Both Coile and Pyper live in Toronto.
A smart home turns into a house of horrors in this suspenseful outing from Coile . . . Coile expertly imagines the sort of ghoulish snares a cybernetic environment could spring upon its unprepared captives and throws in a late-inning explanation for the source of William's apparent sociopathy that is as believable as it is chilling. It's a frightening Frankenstein fable for the age of AI * Publishers Weekly * Moments of this cinematic tale truly terrify . . . Coile maximises his premise's inherent tension using nightmare imagery and an uneasy third-person-present narration shot through with powerlessness, paranoia, and dread. Gleefully lurid fun -- Kirkus Coile locks you in the smart home of your nightmares, and inside is a gauntlet of thrills and surprises that'll have you looking over your shoulder till the very end. If reading with one hand over your mouth is your thing, this is the book for you -- Gus Moreno, author of THIS THING BETWEEN US From its first page all the way to its jaw-dropping ending, William had me hooked. I mainlined this book in one sitting, loving the tragically endearing protagonist Coile had created while marvelling at the whip-smart plotting -- Nick Cutter, author of THE TROOP and THE DEEP A gripping page-turner that makes you think, William gets you by the throat and doesn't let go until it has spun you through some of your darkest fears. Mason Coile has written a modern-day Frankenstein for our digital age that grapples with the notion of consciousness and what makes a human -- Araminta Hall, author of ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS A deliciously terrifying book about creation and its false promise of control, William exposes the harrowing consequences of playing god. Coile demolishes the idea that our homes and identities are safe in a fully automated world. I dare you to read this in more than one sitting -- Ling Ling Huang, author of NATURAL BEAUTY Dark, clever, and terrifying, I devoured Coile's novel. If you're not afraid of AI now, you will be after William -- Robyn Harding, author of THE DROWNING WOMAN Mason Coile's William is twisted, timely, scarily intelligent, and menacing even before it reveals its greatest, darkest secrets -- Jonny Compton, author of THE SPITE HOUSE A book that probes at the fears for our future and provokes the terrors of our pasts - William asks, if the things we make reflect us, what does that say about what we are? Also - it's f***ing terrifying -- Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of THE DANCE TREE I read and enjoyed William in a single sitting, as if it were a story from a classic horror comic, or a new episode in a favourite film franchise at Halloween. Impressive horror as entertainment, yet twinned with insights into male identity and original speculations on the consequences of playing God with tech -- Adam Nevill, author of ALL THE FIENDS OF HELL