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Certainty

A Novel

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Certainty

By: John Twelve Hawks
Narrated by: Scott Brick
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John Twelve Hawks, bestselling author of The Traveler, returns with a masterful journey through the near future of Artificial Intelligence, in which a wise, orphaned ten-year-old girl goes on the run with only her trusty "Interactive Toy" to guide her toward New York City, where a dark landscape, and perhaps a hidden hero, await her.

Men's Health Most Anticipated Sci-Fi • BookBub Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of Spring • “Engaging, thought-provoking, and terrifying…. [Certainty] will appeal to fans of George Orwell and Michael Crichton.”—Library Journal • “Magnificent.”—Booklist


As long as she can remember, ten-year-old Kate has felt like someone was watching her. She has been orphaned since the pandemic, her foster parents find her eccentric and off-putting, and her legal guardian is nowhere to be seen. Now, an algorithm has predicted the very worst—​within thirty days, Kate will either be killed, or become a killer. When two police officers arrive at her home in Maine intending to implant her with a tracking device, Kate is urged by her trusted AI Interactive Toy (a talking stuffed seal named Zeno) to make an immediate escape. Confused and looking for answers, Kate sets a course for New York City and begins an Orwellian journey into the unknown.

Gripping, intricately plotted, and delightfully imaginative, Certainty is a profound and eerily prescient novel about the ever-blurring line between man and machine. Amid the murder investigation of a gifted AI robot-maker, a missing-person being tracked down in the darkest corners of virtual reality, and Kate's harrowing journey to New York, John Twelve Hawks's novel explores the spectacular humanity to be found in a world where humans are themselves endangered.
Adventure Dystopian Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Technothrillers Thriller & Suspense Exciting Scary

Critic reviews

Praise for John Twelve Hawks' Certainty

"The author of the Fourth Realm Trilogy has a knack for keeping narratives hopping—even at their knottiest. A lively character in thought and action, Kate is one of the more appealing pre-teens to appear in recent dystopian fiction. And Zeno is never shy about stealing scenes. Those who reject AI and those who embrace it will find much to enjoy here."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Readers who have been waiting for a new book by the reclusive author, who keeps his real identity a closely-guarded secret, will not be disappointed. This is a magnificent novel set in a world that is both recognizably our own but at the same time markedly different.... The book stands alongside the author's Fourth Realm trilogy as a brilliant examination of the way our future might play out."
--Booklist

"Detailed worldbuilding, intricate plotlines, and realistic characters combine to describe an all-too-easily imagined future and create a novel that is simultaneously engaging, thought-provoking, and terrifying. A reminder of the importance of humanity in the age of machines, the book will appeal to fans of George Orwell and Michael Crichton."
--Library Journal
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