Fantasy Aisle is a monthly column from Jackie Jennings about everything related to horny dragon books.
Silver Elite, a new dystopian romance novel by someone named Dani Francis, has been going viral across BookTok for its steamy, romantasy-adjacent content—and for the mystery surrounding its author. “Dani Francis” almost certainly doesn’t exist; it’s likely a pseudonym, one that fans speculate is a cover for an already-published author. Of course, there are plenty of other theories surrounding the identity of Silver Elite’s creator, the most insidious one being that the book was generated by AI. While it doesn’t seem likely, it also isn’t impossible. And the idea that a popular book could be at least partially machine-generated without a reader’s knowledge is a reality that publishers seem unequipped, or unwilling, to address.
Silver Elite was released in early May, and, look, it’s fun—as sexy, magic-ish tomes go, it’s a solid seven out of 10. The book hit the New York Times bestseller list in mid-June and it received a lot of help getting there; it was a Book of the Month Club pick and was published with sprayed edges, which is catnip for book nerds. But the hype and marketing effort surrounding the release quickly led fans to speculate that Dani Francis is, in fact, not a debut author at all—I’ve seen everything from “it’s Sarah J. Maas” to “it’s a team of ghostwriters”; there’s also theories that Francis could be an established writer experimenting across genres, or trying to recover from bad press or sales—could J.K. Rowling be trying her withered, disgusting hand at the hottest new genre?? Or (and this is my favorite theory) is Dani Francis something worse than a robot, maybe even something worse than J.K. Rowling. Is Dani Francis…a man???
All of these options have decent supporting evidence, and one version of them seems like the most likely option. But there’s also speculation that Dani Francis is, in fact, completely fake, and that the book was generated by AI. I’ve read the book and worked extensively with commercially available AI tools; I don’t think Silver Elite was generated using AI—at least not entirely. But discouragingly, the book’s publisher, Penguin Random House, has not refuted the AI allegations. (It also hasn’t said whether Dani Francis is a pen name, but the book’s inside jacket bears no author photo, and Dani Francis’s social media declares itself “run by assistants Nicki & Krynn” and is devoid of anything but Silver Elite promotion. Her author bio says she is “an avid reader, a lover of all things breakfast, and a hopeless romantic,” a description so hilariously generic I have to hope it’s not how a living writer seriously describes herself.)
Pen names are somewhat common in the publishing industry, and sure, publishers are not under an obligation to reveal their existence. But PRH’s refusal to at least deny that Dani Francis is a robot feels a little chilling. It would be so easy to issue a statement saying that Dani Francis’s book was written by an author, not a machine, who wishes to remain anonymous. Without even the most broad denial, even those credulous enough to believe that a human name on the cover equals a human author start to wonder…could Silver Elite be written by AI? And what, exactly, would that even look like?
As so many of our everyday processes increasingly utilize some degree of artificial intelligence, the line between “using” and “not using” AI blurs—because it isn’t a binary at all. What if an author uses ChatGPT to plan their writing schedule? Or if, in the course of researching “best ways to eat out a magical princess,” the writer skims Google results which are now, by default, infused with AI responses? What if a writer uses ChatGPT to more directly influence their actual words—like organizing or editing an outline? Or punching up a passage—even just one passage in an 800-page novel? Those examples are far more likely to already be occurring; does that mean a book was written by AI, or just with it?
This is a line that, right now, individual artists are drawing for themselves. There’s no guidance around the ethical use of AI as a writer, no standard or litmus test to determine whether a work has been created by AI. For the writer’s part, whether and how to use AI is entirely a question of integrity.
But for a publisher, the story is slightly different. In August 2024, Penguin Random House shared a post on AI about preventing companies from using its titles to train LLMs. The statement vows to defend intellectual property, which, until now, has been the largest issue facing creators in regards to AI. But on the topic of authors—or Random House itself—using AI to make their work product, the statement has this to say:
We have a long track record as an innovator in the publishing industry, and we will use generative AI tools selectively and responsibly, where we see a clear case that they can advance our goals…Whatever AI tools we choose to use, every Penguin Random House book will be shaped and nurtured by a team of highly talented humans, from beginning to end.”
Shaped and nurtured, but not made. Not written.
There are already AI publishing companies promising (or threatening, depending on your point of view) to flood the marketplace with thousands of cheaply produced, AI-generated books in the near future. So of course publishers want to hedge their bets. Maybe one day, traditional publishers will feature whole imprints, trained on their own IP and designed to release machine-written books.
I don’t think that Dani Francis is a cover for some large-scale AI-generated experiment. Yet. But I do think this broad position leaves the door wide open for a story like this to be true someday soon. And, while a lot of the chatter around Silver Elite seems pretty heavy on the speculation and light on the evidence, the use of AI in book-writing is something to take seriously.
Maybe you don’t mind if your next sexy dragon book is made by a machine. But I do. When I read, I want to know that a human being wrote what I’m consuming. Besides loving the act of consuming a story, I love the act of communing with another person’s brain. And as a general principle, I think I have the right to know what I’m consuming. Clothing labels state where a product is made, and of what materials. Food labels lay out every ingredient, whether the product is organic, even what else is processed in the same building. So now that our art can be hyper-processed and factory-made, why don’t we demand labels with exactly that information? I’d like to know what percentage of my books are made using AI. I can accept that maybe some authors will choose to use it. Perhaps the future of reading inevitably includes AI-generated books. But it’s a choice consumers should be allowed to make for themselves.
And maybe someday soon, Dani Francis will reveal herself, enjoy the attention that comes with writing a bestselling series, and quash all the rumors around her identity once and for all. Until then, we have a right to know whether or not she’s a robot—at least in time for the sequel.
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