In The Blink of An Eye: A BBC Between the Covers Book Club Pick

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In the Blink of an Eye is fresh, innovative and very very clever. Flawlessly paced, plotted and researched, it’s laugh out loud, heart-achingly sad and doesn’t have a dull moment. I raced through it. Simply sensational’ M. W. CRAVEN

This story explores what it could be like for the police force to work with AI (artifical intelligence). I loved the thinking of this as lets face it, they are making cars that drive themselves so realistically, things like this could be a possibility at some point in the future. Walter Scott, that master of the 19th-century historical novel, wrote and revised and produced all his life, working industriously at novel after novel. Then towards the end of his life he had a series of debilitating strokes: he could, at the last, barely speak, and was almost unrecognisable as the man he had once been. And yet he kept writing. The very last few Waverley novels are fascinating: not “good” by conventional metrics, but recognisably Scott in a free-associative sort of way, and extraordinary works: as if Scott was a writing machine that just continued churning out stories even after his conscious mind had been disengaged. Featured onthe BBC 2 series ‘Between the Covers’, debut author Jo Callaghan will be visiting The Hive to discuss her first novel ‘In the Blink of an Eye’, rated as “The most original crime novel you’ll read this year”. In my book of essays about life with AI – moving from Mary Shelley’s 1818 vision of a man-made humanoid to the possibilities of the metaverse – I describe AI not as artificial intelligence but alternative intelligence. Jo Callaghan is a strategist specialising in the future of work, and author of debut crime novel In the Blink of an Eye, published by Simon & Schuster. Further readingThis has to be a strong contender for crime debut of the year - sharp, perceptive writing and a brilliant new take on the detective duo' T. M. Logan Debates about the future impact of AI on fiction are too often led by considerations of supply – what AI might be capable of – rather than demand – what do we, as humans wish to create and consume? The question is not whether AI can replace the role of writers, but the extent to which the consumers and commissioners of fiction are willing to invest in original, human-generated stories. In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan will be published in Australia by Simon & Schuster on 10 January 2023. Kat’s just returning to work when we meet her. We soon learn she’d cared for her dying husband. I initially suspected he was a cop who died by some nefarious means, but it’s nothing like that. Less dramatic, if you like. But of course no less tragic.

Could artificial intelligence therefore offer a fairer and more efficient way forward for 21st-century policing? There are broadly two types of AI: “narrow AI”, which can perform specific tasks such as image recognition, and “general purpose AI”, which makes far more complex judgments and decisions extending across all kinds of domains. General purpose AI relies on deep learning – absorbing huge amounts of data and using it to continually adjust and improve performance, and has the potential to take over more and more of the tasks humans do at work. ChatGPT, a state-of-the-art language processing model that has the ability to write research papers, articles and even poems in a matter of seconds, is the latest example of this to catch the public imagination. A very well put together and entertaining police drama. I highly recommend it. You will feel all the emotions. It's so much more than a dystopian police procedural and asks questions about who we are and what it means to be human. Brilliant' NIKKI SMITH

A standout debut with a unique and thrilling take on the detective novel. Engaging, exciting and superbly readable. I loved it' SARAH HILARY

What, then, is essentially human about the novel? My own answer has to do with the ways in which we unruly people rebel against forms, break them when they ask to be followed. It has to do with the ways people marry their own physical experiences of the world to texts that have been read for centuries and, in doing so, revise and alter them. I start there, but I’m still trying to figure out what it is that human beings bring to the work of writing a story. That feels like an important question, a question that should feel urgent to any person who loves to read. It’s a question that is made more urgent by LLMs. I’m grateful they exist to challenge us. I’d like to thank Netgalley UK, Simon & Schuster UK, and Jo Callaghan for such a thought-provoking e-ARC.The plot was so intriguing and the characters are very interesting, I do hope there is more to come with Kat. A truly original premise that is both compelling and filled with heart. Highly recommended’ Olivia Kiernan Some might argue that AI provides the valuable service of customising fiction to each reader’s tastes and specifications. For example, you could tell AI to “serve” you fiction about an enemies-to-lovers arc that takes place in space. But how will you ever find something else to like if you stay entrenched within the loops fed to you by algorithms? And the oddly specific reading preferences – did algorithms have a hand in shaping those tastes in the first place? A standout debut with a unique and thrilling take on the detective novel. Engaging, exciting and superbly readable. I loved it’ Sarah Hilary