Justin C. Key, "The Hospital at the End of the World: A Novel" (Harper, 2026)

About this episode

Justin C. Key discusses his novel set in a future dominated by AI and the quest of a medical student to uncover family secrets.

From author Justin C. Key comes The Hospital at the End of the World: A Novel (Harper, 2026), set in a near future where artificial intelligence runs the world, involving a young medical student who must unravel family secrets to uncover the truth of his father’s mysterious death. In a time not so far from our own, society is run by a global AI system controlled by an all powerful corporation. The Shepherd Organization oversees every medical school in the country save one in New Orleans, the renegade Hippocrates which still insists on human-led medicine. It is the last choice school for an ambitious young New Yorker named Pok. But after his father—himself a physician—dies under mysterious circumstance that seems connected to “the shepherds” and their megalomaniacal young CEO, Pok finds himself on a quest for answers that leads right to Hippocrates. Once enrolled, he stumbles upon a further mystery: a strange illness is plaguing newcomers to New Orleans who grew up under shepherd rule. What is causing this fatal anomaly? And how does it relate to the mystery of Pok’s father’s death and his own mysterious past? Justin C. Key is a practicing psychiatrist and a speculative fiction…

People in this episode

Host: Marshall Poe

Guest: Justin C. Key

Topics covered

• artificial intelligence
• medical ethics
• family secrets
• mystery
• speculative fiction

Keywords

• artificial intelligence
• medical student
• mystery
• family secrets
• speculative fiction

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Harper, The Shepherd Organization

Books & works: The Hospital at the End of the World: A Novel

Places: New Orleans

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