Every novel begins long before the first chapter. From the Notebook is a place to share some of the questions, observations, and conversations that shaped RIFT: Gestalt long before the story reached the page.

The Obsession with Capability

When we talk about technology, the conversation almost always begins with capability.

What can a new system do? How much faster can it process, predict, create, or optimize?

Capability is fascinating. It’s easy to measure, easy to compare, and easy to celebrate. But while writing RIFT: Gestalt, I found myself returning to a different question—one that sits quietly beneath every technological breakthrough:

What happens to human choice as our systems become increasingly capable of choosing for us?

The more I explored that question, the more I realized that intelligence and agency are not the same thing. Technology can expand what we can do. It cannot decide what we should do.

A Philosophy Made Tangible

That distinction became unexpectedly tangible during the publishing process.

I chose to enroll RIFT: Gestalt in Amazon’s No AI Training program. To many people, it’s simply another publishing option—a checkbox in an author’s dashboard. To me, it reflected a question I had already been exploring throughout the novel.

Not because I reject artificial intelligence. I use AI regularly and believe it will continue to reshape how we learn, create, and solve problems. Nor was the decision about building a wall around creative work.

It was about preserving agency—the idea that creators should retain the freedom to decide how their finished work is used.

There is an important difference between using technology to expand human thought and allowing it to quietly narrow the space for human choice. As our capabilities continue to grow, the act of making thoughtful, deliberate decisions may become more valuable than ever.

The Core Tension

That tension lies at the heart of RIFT: Gestalt.

We often imagine intelligence as the ability to produce better answers. But perhaps an equally important question is whether it leaves enough room for human responsibility.

When certainty is increasingly offered by machines, do we gradually lose the habit—and the courage—of choosing for ourselves?

What Science Fiction Is For

At its best, science fiction isn’t about predicting new technologies. It’s about examining the people who create them, live with them, and ultimately decide what kind of future they will build.

RIFT: Gestalt doesn’t offer comfortable conclusions. Instead, it invites readers into the space where technology meets human judgment, and asks which decisions we should never surrender.

Technology will continue to evolve.

The more interesting question is whether we will evolve with it—or quietly allow it to decide who we become.

Thank you for reading these notes. I hope they offer a small glimpse into the questions behind RIFT: Gestalt—long before the story begins.