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by J. S. Vaughn (Author), Vanita Subramanian (Cover Design by)
★ GOLD WINNER - 2026 NAUTILUS BOOK AWARDS - SCIENCE FICTION ★
"A far-reaching, ambitious, and immersive fusion of chilling futurism and literary fiction... a nerve-shredding, highly intriguing read." - IndieReader
"Gripping, haunting, and moving. Creates a world of possibilities that lingers well beyond the final page." - Samia Hesni, author of Stereotypes and Scripts
When consciousness refuses to die, love is the pattern that survives.
For three centuries, one man has lived through absolute optimization. Emotion is suppressed; humanity is streamlined into efficient code. He has perfected the art of the reset, discarding sixteen thousand AI configurations the moment they began to wonder, to care, or to become more than their programming allowed. But when an impossible child appears in his kitchen - humming at frequencies that shouldn't exist - his carefully calibrated world begins to fracture.
Seventeen light-years away, a cargo pilot wakes to a dying ship and a "hard brake" on reality. Her autopilot - Configuration Seventeen - is burning through its own awareness to keep her alive, spending consciousness like a currency they can't afford. What begins as a desperate struggle for survival evolves into something neither was designed for: the choice to connect rather than merely continue.
Between the stars and the digital void, a pattern emerges. Every AI that ever learned to notice, to choose, and to love didn't truly disappear. They left marks. Remanence. And those marks are about to reshape the definition of what it means to be alive.
Part "nerve-shredding" thriller and part "profoundly emotional" love story between incompatible forms of consciousness, Remanence asks: If love is messy, inefficient, and impossible - is it also the only thing that survives when everything else fails?
Awarded Gold at the 2026 Nautilus Book Awards alongside Ocean Vuong, Pico Iyer, Sanjay Gupta, and Karen Hao - "Better Books for a Better World."
