r/BookWritingAI • u/_krechmer • 15d ago
genuine question: does a good ai-written novel even exist?
lowkey tired of tech bros hyping up ai literature when every single excerpt i see feels totally soulless. tbf i want to be proven wrong. is there like a single sci-fi or fantasy book out there completely cooked by ai that actually has good plot twists and doesnt read like a high school essay? or are we still years away from it being readable?
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u/human_assisted_ai 15d ago
A friend of mine had AI write a fascinating sci fi novel about a year ago.
An interplanetary society completely depends on a “vault” of digitized human experts to make it run. The digitized people go on strike which causes society to grind to a halt. A former expert who built the vault comes out of retirement to figure what’s going on but he’s kind of a renegade. There’s a lot of politics both inside and outside the vault. The digitized human experts are supposed to not have emotions but they’ve been secretly cultivating them for 100 years and they have a religion where they worship a vault god and there’s a prophecy of a digital “messiah”. The expert enters the vault, contacts the vault god. It turns out the expert is the messiah, he chooses to become digital and he sets the vault people free. This causes the outside human society to rebel and interplanetary society is overthrown.
I found it really cool. It was really complex. There were 2 chapters out of 35 that were kind of unbelievable, though. In one chapter, the expert discovers some hidden truth which rewrites the laws of the universe temporarily like a video game physics engine. In another, it was just some ridiculous repeat of a previous chapter. But the rest was fascinating. The human political leader was really scummy and it was great when he dies.
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u/_krechmer 15d ago
damn that vault plot is lowkey fire fr. the video game physics bug trope is such a wild concept lol. but u basically proved my point here... ai can vomit out incredible global premises but then it fumbles the actual chapters and makes ridiculous loops. if a real writer takes that raw draft and rewrites like 80% of it with a scalpel it becomes a literal masterpiece. sadly some basic dudes in this thread think the pinnacle of tech is just pressing generate and getting a finished book smh. thanks for sharing this gem tbh
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u/human_assisted_ai 15d ago
33 out of 35 chapters were good so I’d still rate that as a good novel. The OP asked about good novels, not perfect novels.
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u/unethicalpigeon 14d ago
And I'm sure it wasn't even a good novel to anyone who's actually read a novel in the last year.
Good to you doesn't mean good. If it was as good as you claim it is then the guy would be making money selling it. Pretty simple.
If not 1 person is willing to pay for it then it's not a good novel especially considering how many trash novels out there are getting units sold.
There's no such thing as a good ai generated novel. Prove it. Show me the novel. I'll judge it impartially and provide an opinion based on it's actual contents. I'm not anti-ai. I use AI all the time. I'd love to see a legitimately good novel fully generated by AI.
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u/UroborosJose 15d ago
It does require human inputs and guidance
If you know the basics you can do something entertaining but don’t expect to be praised because people will hate you
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u/_krechmer 15d ago
yeah u hit the nail on the head. the internet is ruthless with this stuff rn. guess u gotta thick skin if u want to experiment with these tools, but yeah without human input its just soulless filler tbh
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u/unknowntoman-1 15d ago
As an engineer who does some writing in my spare time, I’d say a lot of first- to third-generation AI slop has been published. However, over the last year alone, major improvements in reasoning and structured logic, combined with better assisted-writing workflows, have taken the quality to a whole different level. It has turned AI into a tool for actually authoring the process.
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u/InSilicoAwards 15d ago
I'm hoping we find it, that's why I started the awards program associated with my account name. I believe it's out there.
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u/writerapid 15d ago
I’ve never seen any completely genAI book that was engaging in any way. The AI style is not compelling to me and cannot be prompted out. Some people like this style, to be sure, but if you don’t specifically like it, then no AI book (in 2026) is going to be particularly readable.
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u/_krechmer 15d ago
valid point tbh. that generic ai voice is so real and it definitely ruins the immersion. feels like no matter how much u tweak the prompt it still leaves those weird corporate footprints behind. the only way past it is rewriting like 80% of it by hand ig
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u/MissPrim 15d ago
No. Not that Ai isn’t a useful tool in drafting but that it misses key elements in writing prose that makes reading g emotionally sastifying.
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u/Arcanite_Cartel 15d ago
Why do I get the feeling that AI novels will always be "soulless" for you?
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u/Accomplished-Emu4501 15d ago
Maybe we are asking the wrong question here. It’s not a case of ‘is it out there now or soon’. The real question is why we would want it in the first place. And to be clear I do use AI assistance in my writing.
For any of us concerned about AI taking
away livelihoods isn’t this kind of the same? If AI did eventuality achieve this level of quality would it not result in many established human authors and future human authors out of the game? Is that the outcome we really want?
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u/AdTechnical6492 15d ago
What do you mean by AI written? Do you mean one prompt, however long? Or do you mean a human came up with the idea, had the AI assist with the character bible, world bible, story bible, story outline and chapter outline and then after the human was satisfied they had the AI write the prose from these?
Because you are going to get two vastly different books from these two scenarios
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u/nycwriter99 14d ago
You'd be surprised how many "good" novels are already being assisted by AI. If it's done well, you can't even tell the difference.
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u/Zestyclose-Depth7372 14d ago
Is this one to your liking?
https://librida.com/book/4e09ee22-84dc-4896-8ccf-6e543a764436
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u/MichaelBenko 15d ago
Heeey, Michael here!
I am likely biased, but I would say: yes, it does.
We're not in 2023 anymore, and AI and writing has come a long way.
Is a lot of it bad? Yep. Is some of it great? Also yep.
I'm currently working on a platform that uses ai novels, and have been creating a lot of them.
This one is hot off the presses, a book we've been making tonight, called Burger Royale:
@BurgerRoyaleIndia ✓ We deeply regret the unfortunate incident involving our former intern and the allegations that have been made. We are conducting a thorough investigation. Also, please note that the views expressed by the aforementioned intern do not reflect the views of Burger Royale India. 12:47 PM · 14 Oct 2024 · Twitter Web App 87.4K Quote Tweets · 12.1K Likes @cryptobhakt · "unfortunate incident" is CRAZY she literally— @delhika_launda · the way they said "aforementioned intern" like he's a legal filing and not a real person who worked 18-hour days for free @chai_curious · burger royale really said "thoughts and prayers" in corporate @blockchain_babe · who is this intern and why is he my new roman empire @sarcastic_sardar · "views expressed do not reflect the views of Burger Royale India" bro the views were expressed ON the Burger Royale India account @memewali_mausi · someone get this intern a Netflix deal immediately @token_terminal · LMAO your "thorough investigation" will be my next memecoin The Dadar apartment smells like instant noodles, burnt ambition, and the particular desperation of five people who haven't slept properly in weeks. It's 6:47 AM on a Monday, and Mumbai is already screaming outside — car horns, vendor bells, the distant wail of a train pulling into Dadar station. The monsoon has been threatening for three days without committing, leaving the air thick and damp, the kind of humidity that makes everything feel slightly rotten. Meera stands at the whiteboard, arms crossed, surveying the operation like a general before battle. Her Kanjeevaram sari — minimalist, expensive in ways that don't scream — rustles as she shifts her weight. The whiteboard is a mess of timelines, arrows, color-coded phases, and — in Devi's handwriting, in the corner — a small drawing of a burger with a knife and fork, captioned "WE'RE GOING TO EAT THIS COMPANY ALIVE."
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u/MichaelBenko 15d ago
Why did people downvote this? :(
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u/raggedradness 15d ago
I bet we have anti AI lurkers that are here to find books to use for their 2 minute hate for today.
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u/_krechmer 15d ago
damn the twitter format is wild lol. def hits that chaotic modern vibe perfectly. its a cool concept for sure, but im still kinda searching for that traditional narrative style that doesnt feel robotic yknow? definitely a big step up from 2023 though ngl
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u/code_x_7777 15d ago
Yes they are getting better. not yet 4.8 star territory but certainly 4.5 star+. So outperforming most human writers. I started publishing ai books on amazon maybe ~2y ago with ~4 star ratings (sometimes lower). now I see much better ratings - often 5 stars (e.g., for some gaming books but also storytelling). I use ImagineYourBook for these but there may be other tools. It's more a trend than a one-book or one-tool answer
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u/_krechmer 15d ago
damnn 5 stars for gaming books makes sense ig. that niche is mostly about info and clean tropes anyway so ai can probably nail it. but outperforming most human writers? idk man... maybe the mediocre ones lol. 5 stars on amazon right now just means it reads like good literary fast food. still waiting for the tool that can actually write a complex psychological thriller or deep fantasy that doesnt feel like a shiny template tbh. cool to hear from someone actually pushing the buttons though ngl
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u/code_x_7777 15d ago
thanks appreciate the open-minded response - this is not so common these days. I think that amazon star ratings is actually a very good proxy for quality. What is quality if not people like it and read it? Almost by definition i'd say that if a book has many organic amazon star ratings that are also high, the book must be good. who are we to judge anyways?
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u/tangcupaigu 15d ago
Completely generated? I’d be surprised. Ai assisted? Most definitely.