Neil Sharpson's When the Sparrow Falls illuminates authoritarianism, complicity, and identity in the digital age, in a darkly-funny, frightening and touching story that recalls Philip K. Dick, John LaCarré and Kurt Vonnegut in equal measure.
Welcome to the Caspian Republic. The last bastion of true humanity in a world given over to artificial intelligence.
Stray from the path towards anything "machine" and the state will correct you.
When propagandist Paulo Xirau dies, and is discovered to himself be a "machine", State Security Agent Nikolai South is given a new assignment he could hardly want less: chaperone the widow, Lily, the only "machine" visitor ever invited from the outside world, and help her determine what happened to her husband.
Nikolai knows it will be nearly impossible to complete the job without running afoul of the Party—but when he sees that Lily bears an eerie resemblance to his late wife, Nikolai stumbles on a larger plot, one that exposes all the lies he's told himself and which may bring down the Republic for good.
A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books