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Apr 23, 2024 | 
electricliterature.com | Richard Powers |Alexandra Kleeman |Vauhini Vara |Debbie Urbanski
I left New York in 2009 for grad school, and by the time I returned—just a few years later—the city had been transformed. Walking to the subway, on the sidewalks and escalators, almost everyone carried a pet screen. Sometimes people banged into things or ran into each other, too absorbed in the digital world to navigate the real one. Commuters swooned over their devices on the train, heads drooping and backs bent, like so many nodding-off drunks. It happened to me too.
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Jan 24, 2024 | 
thesunmagazine.org | Debbie Urbanski
We are pleased to share this excerpt from Debbie Urbanski’s first novel, After World, published by Simon & Schuster.
The last live stream Sen can access goes down in June of her final year. The feed had shown a caged ape who played a keyboard in exchange for vouchers, which were supposed to be a short-term transitional currency, though it never worked out that way. There used to be rinds of fruit in the corners of the ape’s cage. For years fresh fruit had been difficult—impossible?—to find.
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Jan 24, 2024 | 
thesunmagazine.org | David Mahaffey |Nick Fuller Googins |Debbie Urbanski
Our January 2024 issue explores causes and effects—between species, life choices, and how we care for others—subjects that were also on the minds of two Sun contributors as they wrote their new debut novels. Nick Fuller Googins and Debbie Urbanski imagined very different futures for humanity in the wake of unchecked climate change.
In The Great Transition Fuller Googins suggests what it might take to end the climate crisis, and what the world could be like for those who survive.
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Dec 8, 2023 | 
newsbreak.com | Debbie Urbanski
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Dec 8, 2023 | 
lithub.com | Debbie Urbanski
Let’s imagine, for the purpose of this essay, that the following statement is true: An AI writes a novel. Actually, forget about the imagining. This is already happening. Today’s AIs—large language models (LLMs) specifically, like GPT-4—can write. If you’ve glanced at the headlines this year, you probably know this. They can write papers for high school students, they can write bad poetry, they can write sentences, they can write paragraphs, and they can write novels.
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Dec 2, 2023 | 
simonandschuster.com | Debbie Urbanski
About The Book “An intelligent, defiant novel, akin to any of Annalee Newitz’s writings while also brushing shoulders with some of the great questions of identity and consciousness brought up in the works of William Gibson.” —San Francisco ChronicleA groundbreaking debut that follows the story of an Artificial Intelligence tasked with writing a novel—only for it to fall in love with the novel’s subject, Sen, the last human on Earth.
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Dec 1, 2023 | 
gizmodo.com | Cheryl Eddy |Debbie Urbanski |Bradley P. Beaulieu
As the end of 2023 approaches, there’s still time to squeeze in more reading—which is where io9 comes in, sharing 21 new sci-fi, fantasy, and horror releases coming out in December, including several anthologies perfect for short-fiction fans. “Even AI Rappers are Harassed by Police” | AI UnlockedAfter Worldby Debbie UrbanskiThis debut novel is set in a world where AI concludes every human must be removed and digitally archived.
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Dec 1, 2023 | 
datebook.sfchronicle.com | Debbie Urbanski |Urban Waite
“After World” by Debbie Urbanski. Photo: Simon & SchusterLet’s get this out of the way: Debbie Urbanski, with her debut novel, “After World,” has created a beautiful end for the human race. The story is told through the lens of an artificial intelligence known as storyworker ad39-393a-7fbc, which has read “64,213 novels … to learn the craft of human documentation” and takes place hundreds of years in the future when a virus known only as S. has rendered all humans infertile.
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Nov 1, 2023 | 
booklistonline.com | Debbie Urbanski
Dec. 2023. 368p. Simon & Schuster, $27.99 (9781668023457).
REVIEW.
First published November 1, 2023 ().
Urbanski’s debut imagines what the future of humanity and the planet might be. What does a world look like as it slowly collapses, and how do people—as a collective and as individuals—handle it? Disease is what kicks off the end of humanity, but the environment and technology are really what are explored here. Sen Anon is the last human on Earth and has been tasked as a witness to a rewilding world.
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Sep 19, 2023 | 
tor.com | Debbie Urbanski
Faced with uncontrolled and accelerating environmental collapse, humanity asks an artificial intelligence to find a solution. Its answer is simple: remove humans from the ecosystem. We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from After World by Debbie Urbanski, which follows the story of an Artificial Intelligence tasked with writing a novel—only for it to fall in love with the novel’s subject, Sen, the last human on Earth. After World publishes with Simon & Schuster on December 5. Read More »
