Krysa – Tissari Sami (2025)

What if the father of machine learning, Frank Rosenblatt, had not tragically drowned in an accident in Chesapeake Bay in 1971, but instead was rescued by a Soviet submarine and taken to a secret location, where he led research in artificial intelligence for the following decades?

Thanks to the rat developed by Rosenblatt, the Soviet Union became a leading world power, but when the machines suddenly stop working, it means the end of civilization. Pavel Dybenko, who is responsible for the disaster, retreats to a remote cabin in Finland with a mysterious doll powered by nuclear energy. Everyone Dybenko knew is dead. He is apparently the only one who knows what happened and why.

The novel "The Rat" is a multi-layered alternative history and an intoxicating tale that suggests the course of the world as we know it may depend on a tiny detail, but ultimately provides a dystopian testimony about our own hurried and dehumanized era, in which technology, machines, and artificial intelligence hold increasing power.