Will I love This Perfect Day?

The news is full of stories about chilling developments in artificial intelligence.

And you don’t have to venture into the fantasy world of killer robots to be terrified. Already, “chatbots” are blurring the lines between human and machine intelligence.

It’s gotten to the point that you can’t trust what you see or read online—because it may have been created by some AI designed to cheat or scare you into doing something you really don’t want to do.

Ira Levin’s novel, published in 1970, shows us a world ruled by artificial intelligence. It’s dystopia in the truest sense—and it’s likely to… show more.

Ira Levin wrote 7 novels; I wish he’d written more. He was that very rare bird: a literary writer who wrote for readers, and not for himself. He’s all story, never showmanship—his beautiful flourishes are stunning because they’re so rare.  

This Perfect Day is one of his novels that hasn’t been turned into a film (the only other one is Son of Rosemary, his sequel to Rosemary’s Baby). This is a head-scratcher to me just because it’s easily his most cinematic novel—in the sense of lending itself to stunning visuals. It’s very much in the same school… show more.