I’d read a bunch about this book, but really, I had no idea what I was getting into. This is among the weirdest and best books I’ve read this year. Here’s what I wish I knew going in:

Don’t be intimidated by the highbrow reviews — this isn’t some complex science/philosophical deep dive. It’s a novel, and a killer one at that. Easily top 5 of 2023.

It’s a fictional retelling of real-world events. The bulk of the book is a kind of oral history of the life of John von Neumann, as told by imagined writings of real historical figures. Some of it overlaps with the movie Oppenheimer. Von Neumann was a computer scientist and contemporary of the dudes in the movie, though his story isn’t at all depicted in the film. Even still, some moments overlap the film to the point where it felt that Christopher Nolan got the NetGalley ARC.

The last third of the book is about DeepMind (cofounded by Mustafa Suleyman, author of the recent The Coming Wave, who makes a very brief appearance), the company who developed AlphaGo, the Go-playing AI that provided the spark for our current AI obsession. I don’t know anything about the game, but reading the dramatization of the tournament against Lee Sedol was a fully sweaty-palms experience.

Labatut does an incredible job of connecting these dots and building suspense. He’s bringing an artistic perspective to history, which could be a meta-commentary on the last section of the book. It’s insightful, educational and absolutely unique. It could almost be read as the origin story for a Terminator-style dystopian future.

This book is readable, compelling and full of ideas that will follow you around long after you finish it. It’s absolutely riveting.