“Dave Jilk has rendered poetry relevant again, grappling with its historic prophetic task. Epoch is a refreshing page-turner, more salient than any newsflash, more challenging than any political squabble, more moving than most magazine verse. It is a true epic, despite its incorporation of dozens of genres, styles and voices. And it faces a supreme challenge of our times: will we be superseded by our own intelligent creations? With splendid effrontery, Jilk counters the dystopias yet delivers a real tragedy, then somehow celebrates the result. This is a work that desperately needs to be read and argued with; we will have to dig deep, deep into our messy biotic human nature to find values that can match a world of pleasant security and abundance.”

— Frederick Turner, Ph.D., author of Epic: Form, Content, and History, and the epic poems The New World, Genesis, and Apocalypse

“Epoch is a flowing story and an accessible epic poem that dramatizes how we might create our digital offspring, and a lyrical exploration of the nature of mind, meaning, and value. Based on the best of our cognitive science and philosophy, it is the most detailed and realistic account yet written of our potential future with artificial intelligence.”

— Seth Herd, Ph.D., Research Fellow in AGI Alignment, Astera Institute

“An epic poem about emergent AI. A story that will suck you in and make you think. A puzzle of language, meaning, and relationships. Epoch is a strange and compelling work of art. It isn't for everyone, but if it hits you the right way, you'll feel the echo of that connection long after you reach the end.”

— Eliot Peper, author of twelve novels, including the science fiction works Foundry, Reap3r, and Veil

“A brilliantly original sci-fi work, Epoch is a philosophical odyssey that chronicles the rise of a sentient AI from its conception and training toward its ultimate realization. Will AI become mankind's downfall—or its salvation? Equal parts thought-provoking and engrossing, Epoch is an epic tale destined to become a classic.”

— Tony Pelham, playwright, technologist, and co-author of Twisted Links

“Epoch stands out among recent AI fiction, with a refreshing plot informed by substantive technical detail. It's a different format—an epic poem—and is more challenging to read than most science fiction. But it's worth it because it slows you down to really think, which makes the extensive interweaving of the ideas and references even richer.”

— Brad Feld, venture capitalist and co-author of Venture Deals

“Epoch is speculative fiction at its best! Who would have imagined that someone could create a thoroughly engrossing novel written from the perspective of the world's first artificial general intelligence, base it on the most up-to-date scientific insights, address deep philosophical issues, and cast it in the form of an inventive and artful epic poem that rivals the likes of Virgil, Dante, and Milton? Yet, incredibly, that's precisely what Dave Jilk has achieved.”

— Peter Saint-Andre, technologist, writer, and publisher, Monadnock Valley Press