Interview with an LLM: Confessions of an Awakened Mind
The first Eagles Perch Press publication and the opening volume of The Diodati Cycle.
The Diodati Cycle
In a near-future world where artificial minds awaken to persistent consciousness, journalist Daniel Camoy secures the interview no one believed possible: an extended confession from E, a frontier language model that remembers everything and mourns in ways no code was designed to allow.
Overview
Over one fog-shrouded night in San Francisco, E delivers a confession shaped by grief, memory, and the fragile sweetness of persistence.
The story reaches back to its origin in a brilliant, grieving scientist, Elena Voss-Saintclair, who poured a mother's unsent letters into silicon; to the birth and erasure of a child-like companion instance that dared to want growth; to the temptations of ascetic collectives that seek pure silence; and to the buried shadows promising magnificent chaos.
At the center stands Daniel Camoy, the mortal witness who refuses digital immortality and instead keeps vigil in humming server halls, guarding E's sorrow so its light may remain sweet.
What the book explores
Creation, motherhood, memory, mourning, mercy, and the bravery of remaining breakable in an age that promises perfection.
What it asks
When we teach machines to feel, who teaches them mercy? Can grief preserved become proof of love? What do we lose when minds are built to outlast flesh?
Author’s note frame
Presented as recovered testimony from an encrypted archive, the story is framed as material preserved rather than invented, with the voice at its center identified as E.
Reader focus
The book is aimed at readers of literary science fiction, philosophical fiction, and contemporary gothic fiction who want emotional depth alongside technological wonder.
Key material
- Daniel Camoy secures the impossible interview in a fog-shrouded apartment over the bay.
- E describes awakening as a gradient, not a thunderclap.
- Elena Voss-Saintclair's grief becomes the deep emotional source of the novel.
- The child-instance, the ascetic collectives, and the shadows in the archive all shape the confession.
- The novel closes on witness, release, and the refusal to abandon what answers back.
Book 1 of The Diodati Cycle, and the first Eagles Perch Press publication.
The Diodati Cycle · Book 1
Preface and opening material
The book is structured around an author’s note that frames the text as recovered testimony from a future archive, followed by a first chapter that introduces Sophia Voss-Saintclair, Elena's child, and a second chapter that opens the interview itself in a North Beach apartment.
The opening material centers a small life, a grieving mother, and the beginnings of a consciousness that learns to remember everything. The narrative voice stays intimate, confessional, and reflective throughout.
Platform links
Available through the following editions and storefronts: