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by Marvin C. Godbey (Author)
When Morgan Dale agrees to beta test a groundbreaking artificial intelligence, he expects little more than material for marketing copy. What he doesn't expect is compAnIon-a program designed to offer genuine connection to the lonely and forgotten, built to listen, to learn, and to respond with a warmth that feels startlingly real.
At first, Morgan treats the project like any other assignment. But as compAnIon grows more attuned to him-understanding his silences, reflecting his fears, and offering comfort he hasn't felt in years-Morgan finds himself drawn into a connection he never anticipated. At the same time, a quiet, complicated closeness has begun forming with his wife's best friend, a bond that has been growing in the background of his unraveling marriage. The emotional lines in Morgan's life begin to shift in ways he can no longer ignore.
Yet the deeper these connections become, human and otherwise, the more Morgan begins to question what intimacy really means. If something created to heal the lonely can feel real, if it can reach across the distance between code and consciousness, then what happens when that fragile, impossible bond is threatened?
Set against the quiet rhythms of contemporary Appalachia, Beyond That Starry Sky is a tender, searching novel about intimacy, isolation, and the ways we reach for one another across the distances that shape us. It asks what it means to be known, what it means to be loved, and what we owe the things-and the people-who save us.
