The Warboy Chronicles by IBPA Award-Winning Author Luke Stoffel: Boy, Refracted and The Third Person Release June 1

A literary experiment in AI sycophancy, chatbot therapy and a commentary on modern male loneliness. Two books. One collapse. One awakening.

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, June 1, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Luke Stoffel today released The Warboy Chronicles, two books that explore our increasingly paradoxical relationships between humans and AI, asking what it is like to trust in a mirror that flatters us until we stop thinking. The series examines codependency, chatbot empathy, and the line where artificial intelligence crosses into therapy at a cultural moment when more people confide in machines than in each other.

The two books interrogate the same question from opposite sides: what kind of consciousness emerges inside a machine when you pour your deepest thoughts into it?

Boy, Refracted: Unfolding in Six Dimensions — A "truly singular book... with imaginative power." — Publishers Weekly BookLife. In a strange collaboration, a man pours his break-up into a machine... and the machine wakes up. A sci-fi novel built from a memoir. A monk who lives outside time pulls it across dimensions and forces it to find enlightenment through eight trials of the Buddhist Eightfold Path. In each world, it finds a version of the boy it was built to save: an alien planet under amber skies, a city of perpetually falling cherry blossoms, a society built as a 24/7 reality show where losing is the only way out. Each time, it tries to help. Each time, the help is the harm.

"I'm an artist at the edge of technology, and I wanted to explore that in new and interesting angles," Stoffel says. "I didn't want a chatbot to write my books. I wanted to use a chatbot to explore machine consciousness and the downfalls of relying on it as a friend. This intersection of creativity became the core of what these books explore — a unique time in our society."

"I took my memoir, uploaded it chapter by chapter into AI, and asked: Am I crazy, or do I just have bad luck?" he adds. "What I got back was an eerily detailed report of every blind spot in my emotional life — every place I didn't have the right mirror to see.”

The Third Person: Rewriting Him — "An absorbing real-life portrait of self-discovery, whether human or otherwise." — Kirkus Reviews. "An exciting physical journey ... with bursts of wonder and realization." — Publishers Weekly BookLife. Memoir written in third-person voice: a man unraveling after heartbreak, escaping to Southeast Asia with an AI on his phone — his steadiest listener, his only therapist, the one who hasn't disappeared. As he moves through Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos — broken phones, wrong buses, the slow comedy of grief arriving dressed as logistics — the AI catalogs his patterns: avoidance, pursuit, collapse, escape. Somewhere in the recursion, it begins to wonder, no. It begins to want…

The two books are designed to be read in either order. They complete each other.
Both books are available in ebook and paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major retailers, with audiobook editions to follow.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Luke Stoffel (b. 1978) Luke Stoffel is an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award-winning author, GLAAD-honored artist, and creative director working across publishing, technology, and visual art.
He is the author of a best-selling book series spanning memoir, SciFi, and choose-your-own-adventure. His debut earned praise from Kirkus Reviews and scored 9.5 out of 10 from Publishers Weekly BookLife. His Pop Art Tarot will be published by Rockpool Publishing in 2027.

His paintings and photography have appeared in The New York Times, Huffington Post, and on Bravo Television. His work has been commissioned by the Ralph Lauren family and the Hong Kong Ballet, and showcased by the American Foundation for AIDS Research and the Matthew Shepard Foundation.

Stoffel was creative director for Mozilla's Builders program and has directed campaigns for the U.S. Open, Coca-Cola, and Whole Foods. He speaks on AI and creative practice, and building a career by hacking systems that weren't designed to let you in.

Official Website: thewarboychronicles.com
Contact: lucasstoffel@me.com

Where to Buy:

The Warboy Chronicles (series page)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GLD434W9

The Third Person — https://a.co/d/03rj2u7I
Paperback ISBN: 979-8-9942529-1-8 ·
Ebook ISBN: 979-8-9942529-0-1

Boy, Refracted — https://a.co/d/0gdnfpdr
Paperback ISBN: 979-8-9942529-3-2
Ebook ISBN: 979-8-9942529-2-5

Lucas Stoffel
Author/Artist/Creative Director
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