Sike: A Novel [Hardcover]

A story of boy meets girl meets AI therapist,Sikeexplores our aching pursuit of love and self-control

Adrian earns his living writing lyrics for rappers he never meets, and finds success with a hit song about his own fruitless search for love. After his last relationship ends in a spiral of angst, Adrian decides its time to try Sike: the new lauded and elite AI psychotherapy app that tracks your every move and emotion, and guides you toward mental contentment.

He soon falls for Maquie, a smart and pragmatic venture capitalist scouring Londons tech scene for the next business boom. She can see no potential investments though, nothing sparkles. She wants to find a business as successful as Sike, and yet she is also one of the holdouts who refuse to use it.

Shifting between Adrian and Maquies perspectives as it tracks the fraught first year of their relationship,Sikeis a story of two people wrestling with connection, identity, anxiety, success, and the limits of our obsession with self-analysis and awareness.

For fans of Kazuo Ishiguro'sKlara and the Sunand the modern love stories of Sally Rooney, Fred Lunzers debut novel brings us an incisive and intimate deep dive into the reach for clarity by a curious and ambitious, anxious and irresolute generation.

Fred Lunzer was born in London in 1988. He moved to Tokyo at age six, and lived there on and off as a child and adult. His work in business and AI strategy crossed fields that include life sciences, music, ethics, and gastronomy, and he completed an MBA in Barcelona in 2019. Throughout, he wrote journalism, short stories, poetry, and novels. He holds British and German citizenship, and lives in London.

Part love story, Part A.I. story, Fred Lunzers SIKE is that rare thing, a beautifully written novel thats both ingenious and ingenuous. Its of the moment, certainly, but for all its knowledge and knowingnessabout tech and philosophy and bar culture lƒ@