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Author Talk | Justin C. Key

Join author Justin C. Key as he discusses his debut speculative fiction novel, "The Hospital at the End of the World," set in a near future where artificial intelligence runs the world and family secrets unravel.

In a time not so far from our own, society is run by a global AI system controlled by an all powerful corporation. The Shepherd Organization oversees every medical school in the country save one in New Orleans, the renegade Hippocrates which still insists on human-led medicine. It is the last choice school for an ambitious young New Yorker named Pok. But after his father—himself a physician—dies under mysterious circumstances that seem connected to “the shepherds” and their megalomaniacal young CEO, Pok finds himself on a quest for answers that leads right to Hippocrates. Once enrolled, he stumbles upon a further mystery: a strange illness is plaguing newcomers to New Orleans who grew up under shepherd rule. What is causing this fatal anomaly?  And how does it relate to the mystery of Pok’s father’s death and his own mysterious past?

Books will be available for sale and signing from Read It Again.

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Justin C. Key is a practicing psychiatrist and a speculative fiction writer. He is the author of the debut novel The Hospital at the End of the World and the story collection The World Wasn’t Ready for You. His stories have appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Lightspeed, and on Tor.com. He received a BA in biology from Stanford University and completed his residency in psychiatry at UCLA. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.

Moderator Jim Argendeli is a freelance writer, book reviewer, avid reader, bibliophile, and a former college radio station DJ (WRAS 88.5FM). He is a big fan and supporter of the Gwinnett County Public Library.

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