Programmed Paradise

Imagine a retirement community where you never have to pull out a credit card, your health is optimized, and every complex logistical hurdle is handled for you. Sounds like paradise, right?

This is the premise for Everhaven: A Paradise Built on Survival, Data, and Deception, a science fiction novel released last fall by local author Scott Stowell. As the title hints, Everhaven may not deliver the golden years you imagine; your day-to-day life is “managed” by artificial intelligence. It turns out that letting an algorithm call all the shots results in some unintended consequences.

Despite the hints of dystopia, Scott insists the technology itself isn’t the antagonist. “The book itself does not portray AI as a villain,” he explains. “I am a big fan of AI. … It just shows that if you let technology make all your decisions for you, some of the decisions may not turn out to be what you were hoping for.”

Building an Idea

Everhaven started not as a book, but as a script. Approaching retirement age himself, Scott conceived of a population that would be willing to hand control to an artificial intelligence.

“I was looking at what demographic would be in a position to experiment with this futuristic world where AI makes all the decisions for them, and I came to the conclusion that (it would be) seniors,” he says. Combining his characters with a vision for an “all-inclusive” retirement home, Scott began to form a plot.

He couldn’t shake the idea and kept talking about it with family and friends before his wife finally said, “Why don’t you write some things down?”

With a background in music and video production, Scott started where he pictured the story ending up: television. After six months of drafting the script, however, Scott realized he was missing industry connections to make his story a reality. He started converting the story into a book instead, learning the ways of Kindle, Barnes & Noble, and ISBN numbers to deliver the final product.

Reaping the Rewards

Stepping into the fiction world has brought unexpected joys for Scott.

“It is 10 times more rewarding than I ever expected,” he says.

Originally, he intended to keep the manuscript in the family – something fun for his grandkids to read decades from now to see what their “crazy grandpa” was up to. Instead, publishing the book has integrated him into an international community of readers, with copies of Everhaven selling globally.

Scott has taken to navigating social media platforms like LinkedIn to promote his work, which he says has been a mostly positive experience, even if putting yourself out there means occasionally dealing with online critics. For Scott, the ultimate payoff is seeing how the book genuinely alters reader mindsets. He recalls one reader telling him that they felt compelled to take off their smartwatch while reading just to disconnect from the data loop.

Above all, Scott hopes that the book inspires conversation and opportunities for families to set guidelines on how to interact safely with the technology.

“We look at the generation … right now, I think anybody born after 2024 probably is just going to grow up where AI may actually be teaching them more than their parents and/or their teachers. (For us) AI is a very valuable tool because we have the critical thinking piece already down. … Where is the critical thinking going to come in with the newest generation?”

The Next Chapter

Scott has more plans for the Everhaven universe. He hopes to release the follow-up book, Everhaven After, in the next six months, which envisions the retirement community model expanding. And he’s still holding out hope that the series might one day make it to the screen.

Regardless of whether you choose to read the novel, Scott wants us to keep talking about the topic.

“This book doesn’t tell everybody about AI (or) how it works,” he says. “There still needs to be some human interaction, because I do believe that AI should happen with us, not to us.”

Order the book at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, or your favorite bookshop.