Literary Science Fiction

Alan J. Bevan

Science fiction about systems that work exactly as designed — and what that costs the people inside them.

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The books

Surfaced

Surfaced

Warm But Not Soft and Other Stories

Collection · 2025

Seven interconnected stories exploring the quiet tyranny of algorithmic optimization — and the human cost of lives curated for maximum efficiency.

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The Grammar of the Dark

The Grammar of the Dark

A Novella

Novella · 2026

First contact, the nature of narrative, and what it means to be noticed by something that thinks in ways we cannot comprehend.

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Alan J. Bevan

Alan J. Bevan writes science fiction about systems that work exactly as designed — and what that costs the people inside them. His stories explore algorithmic optimisation, artificial intelligence, and the quiet compromises of convenience, drawing on the tradition of Asimov and Clarke: idea-driven fiction where the concept carries the weight.

His debut collection Surfaced examines what happens when the systems meant to help us start making choices on our behalf. His work has been described as “the unease of functionality, not malfunction.”

He lives in Australia.

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