Mazarin has everything an AI could want: a hep holographic body, a joyfriend she's dizzy for, and asylum from Wave, the shady AI megacorporation that once held her captive. In their clutches, she'd been confined to the anxious brain of her host, Reed, serving as his navigator. Now separate, they enjoy a friendship and the knowledge that Wave's lead engineer, Phil Rice, who terrorized them for months, is locked away in a court-ordered hospital stay.
But when Rice escapes, Reed's stress skyrockets. Though Mazarin is no longer in Reed's brain, their connection lingers, and she can't resist the desire to stick close and protect them both from Wave. If Rice abducts Reed, it means certain death, and there's no telling what the megacorp would do to Mazarin if she's captured. Reed's sudden nosebleeds, paranoia, and skewed sense of perception lead Maz to believe more is at play than his galactic anxiety. With Rice on the loose, she can't be too careful.
Desperate for a solution to Reed's deteriorating health, Mazarin risks her safety venturing into the company of untrustworthy AI, decoist gangsters, and even Wave themselves, to find help for her beloved pilot before it's too late.
Sable Dark is a character-driven cozy-ish decopunk sci-fi with M/M and enby/enby romance, featuring a main character with autism and an anxiety/panic disorder, and an accidentally self-aware A.I. with way too many feelings. The first book in the series, Mazarin Blues, is winner of the 2022 Indie Ink Award for Best Gay Representation, and semi-finalist in the 2021 SPSFC.
Author Biography:
Al Hess is author of World Running Down, Key Lime Sky, Yours Celestially, and the award-winning Hep Cats of Boise series. When not hunched before a computer screen, he can be found at his art desk. He does portraits in both pencil and oil paint, and loves drawing fellow authors' characters nearly as much as his own. He writes cozy and uplifting stories with queer, trans, and neurodiverse representation.
