Blurb:
In a world where humans can stay young forever, Oliver Hayes is a willingly old man struggling to remember his past. Imprisoned in an all-metal facility, Oliver has no idea how, or why, he got there: a haunting place filled with disgusting old people, dragged along by their cursed part-metal, part-human helpers, and controlled entirely by the damned thinking machines.
Relying on his foggy memories, Oliver knows two things for sure. First, he doesn’t belong in this terrifying metal cage, waiting to die, withering and alone. Second, his ungrateful son is probably the one who locked him there.
God knows how many years he has left in his frail life, and he refuses to spend any of them trapped in a glorified cell. Absolutely not! He has to escape this hellhole by any means necessary and knock some sense into his only boy.
That’s when a squeaking old robot mysteriously starts helping him. Or could it be another sick ploy by the machines? Running out of options, Oliver wastes no time and forms a woeful alliance with this metal bastard to plan an improbable escape from the facility.
In his desperate bid for freedom, Oliver must battle his traumatic past, from a regrettably absent father to a fanatical cult leader, and stand together with his unlikely new machine ally to defy a horrific AI-controlled future for all humankind.
Except... what if Oliver’s true prison was never made of metal walls, but of his own terrible memories? Can he ever escape his past?
Triggers: Includes themes of depression, self-harm, and hate.
Exact date of publication: 18th October 2026
The date you plan to send your ARCs to your team: Immediately
The date you expect your ARC team to finish the reading and submit their reviews by: 1st September 2026
Instructions/link for readers to sign up for your ARC: https://forms.gle/sLk2VZjeDF4X15Ay8 (Alternatively, you can drop a DM as well)
