A Conversation With David Polfeldt, Author Of Burns

On The Table Read Magazine, “the best arts and entertainment magazine UK“, David Polfeldt talks about Burns, a poignant sci-fi novella exploring AI, identity, and loneliness through the voice of a malfunctioning, poetic droid.

Burns is a philosophical take on AI, identity, and loneliness. What inspired you to tell this story through the voice of a malfunctioning, poetic droid?

Originally, Burns was one of three characters in a longer project, where loneliness was the underlying theme. (The other main characters were a sentient monkey, the very last of its kind, and a young working-class girl who had lost her parents). When I was working on that novel, I fell in love with Burns, and when I finally gave up on the project, the cantankerous little machine remained in my head as an additional perspective through which I experienced events in my own life. After some time, it felt almost like a duty to honor Burns by writing about its fate.

Also, there’s another subtle theme in Burns, which is about the liberties we humans take with other lifeforms and the indifference we show when we hurt them. I asked myself: When we kill a jellyfish, what is the story seen from the jellyfish’s perspective? Hence, that theme required that the main character wasn’t a mammal similar to us.

The novella explores very human emotions—grief, longing, rebellion—through the lens of a machine. What do you think speculative fiction allows us to express that realism can’t?

Burns fights against hopeless odds, and even though it is very intelligent, it is poorly equipped to deal with emotions, or even to handle events caused by its own choices. That makes it very… human actually, you are right! But generally speaking, I think Homo Sapiens is way too focused on Homo Sapiens, and there are other, larger narratives that can be very powerful and intriguing too. Like time, existence, the definition of an “objective reality”, entropy, the riddle of consciousness, and the colossal emptiness of space.

Science Fiction and Fantasy are genres that allow and invite magic, it’s a form of writing that is open to dreams, to bizarre concepts, to the unexpected, to mysteries far beyond our understanding. All in all, speculative fiction is a great canvas to tell stories that transcend the mundane.

You spent years leading a major game studio. How did your experience in the video game industry shape your storytelling instincts as a novelist?

Video games put a lot of attention on the Player (yes, that’s with a capital P), because each individual that plays the game is a key component in the chemistry of the experience. It’s an artform that won’t function with a passive audience. Games are dialogue, while old-school artforms are mostly delivered in the format of elaborate monologue. That means that games need to be accessible and empathetic. They require the Player to lean in, to invest their time, to participate, to make choices that impact the adventure.

As an author, I try to keep this view of the audience in mind, so even if there’s a lot of arty ambition behind Li’l Factory, I want to write and publish stories that are open, inviting and understandable, just like games. I like plot, for instance. And I appreciate elegant denouement. But I also like hidden meanings and underlying messages and intentionally hypnotic rhythm – the kind of writing that lives on subliminally in the reader long after they have finished the book.

On another level, publishing is very humbling. In the games industry, I have been spoiled with large budgets, global marketing campaigns, and intensely active fans – but in literature, I am nobody! Now I struggle with very tight budgets and practically no support, which – to be honest – is daunting. In the short time I have been a publisher, I have gained a tremendous respect for people who do this for a living, it’s really difficult!

Burns isn’t just a story—it’s a design object. Why did you choose to present the book as a limited-edition, highly designed artifact?

I am a fan of tactility. The things we can touch are incredibly important, including the lives of those we meet in in our lives, as well as the impact we have on our world through work. When we touch, we move, and when we are touched, we are moved. There’s beauty in almost any material, in physically applied colour, in wear, in the sunlight that touches the skin. Actual tactility is rare, because it can only exist in the present.

Producing books like I do is a way to connect the object to a particular moment, to bring quality to the meeting between the author and the reader. That’s when the magic happens, when the brainwaves of one being ripples into another. I decided a long time ago that if I was going to publish books, I’d celebrate the craft by wrapping the text into an object that pays tribute to the effort of everyone involved.

The limited-edition concept is cool, but it’s probably more of an acceptance that my type of publishing is never going to turn into a successful business, and I simply don’t want to have too much hassle from managing storage and distributing product.

Cooper, Burns’ digital pet, plays a surprisingly moving role in the narrative. What does this relationship say about emotional connection in a tech-saturated world?

It makes me so happy to hear that, because Cooper is incredibly important to Burns. Fundamentally, I believe that sentience automatically leads to curiosity and a deep desire to accomplish something, whatever that means for the individual. Not all of us have the same chances, let’s not forget that. But if we zoom out a little, I do think that an alien with consciousness or a thinking machine would have similar needs as we do, and hence, isolation would be punishing and ultimately drive the sentient lifeform into depression. We need connection, context, a reaction to our existence.

My problem with technology and social media is that it mimics contact well, like a skilled copycat – but I sincerely doubt that it can function as a substitute for real connection.

You founded Li’l Factory to create books that “defy convention.” What does that mean to you in practice—and how do you want readers to feel when they hold one of your books?

I probably need to say that I don’t particularly strive to be difficult or unconventional. There’s no reason to challenge norms for the sake of being defiant. Many things are like they are for good reasons.

What drives me as a publisher is a late emotional echo of the things that were extremely important to me when I was young; certain types of music, art, comics, film. As it turns out, the artists that “saved my life” (it felt like they did) were considered as unconventional, pretentious and artistic. Joy Division.. David Lynch, the Dadaists, and British prog rockers Van Der Graaf Generator.

As a moody teenager, all that mattered was how their art affected me, but later in life I realised that all the artists I admired had been enabled by some brave businessy person who took a conscious decision to bet on weird ideas that didn’t have any obvious commercial potential. At some point, I decided that in my small pond I can be that entity, the one making the bet. In a perfect scenario, I will some day publish material that has the same emotional impact on a reader as my idols had on me when I was young.

Burns rebels against its own operating system in search of meaning. Do you see that as a metaphor for your own creative journey or career pivots?

It’s hard not to end up writing about yourself, even when the story is a about an alien machine in another galaxy!

But primarily, I see Burns’ fight with the OS as a metaphor for the fight between duty and desire, programming versus impulse. The OS represents society, parents, norms, rules, policies, while Burns wonders what the purpose of all the boundaries is if the price is a pointless life.

There’s a beautiful tension in Burns between humour and melancholy. How do you strike that balance as a writer—and why is it important to you?

That’s very flattering, thank you!

At the core, I am quite a melancholy person. The fragility of life is always on my mind. I constantly mourn the fragmented memories of the past, and I fear that the future won’t be as beautiful as I want it to be. I can’t hide myself when I write, but at the same time, I understand the opposite of melancholy and nostalgia; I can definitely see the importance of embracing the present, the value of gratitude, the quality of smiling, and I do try to become a person who is more focused on such traits. Somewhere in the middle of all this, I find my inabilities quite funny, and there’s a lot of laughable irony in failing to find balance even when we intellectually know exactly what it should be.

At the end of the day, Burns is much more liberated and confident than I am, and when I was writing there were plenty of moments when its choices made me laugh.

What excites/terrifies you most about where AI, creativity, and consciousness are headed right now—especially as someone who’s worked across storytelling, design, and tech?

The current AI is not sentient, I mean literally not all. 0%. It’s merely a great application of statistics. That shouldn’t be scary, but what terrifies me is that most people, including myself, are not able to tell the difference between the words of a dead mirror or those coming from a genuine, living being. I mean, we really should be able to tell them apart, shouldn’t we? The fact that we can’t is making me worried about how AI can be abused to create artificial events that provoke all sorts of behavior, when in fact nothing happened in the first place. It’s not just a risk for a teenager’s self-image or a marriage. Well executed lies can turn into massive corporate battles that destroy thousands of lives, or to mad people becoming presidents in America, or to full-scale wars. Do we have the self-discipline not to lie when we are given the tools to do so perfectly?

On the positive side, statistics/AI are underutilised in areas where it can make a fantastic difference, like understanding the environment, improving education and healthcare. In theory, we can significantly already improve the state of the global society, including making the planet a better place for all the other species that share it with us, jellyfish included.

If a reader finishes Burns and sits in silence for a moment, what do you hope is running through their mind?

I hope they send a warm message of empathy through the ether. To Burns of course, although the droid is extremely far away by now, so perhaps a better choice is to think of an equivalent character in their own life; someone who is lonely and struggles with identity and meaning. No matter who or what that is, it’s a lifeform that needs love.

Find more from David Pofeldt now:

Li’l Factory is the unique publisher behind three titles currently, with more due for release in 2026: Burns by David Polfeldt, Brain Fruit by Stephen Oram, and Mimeograph by Eira Ekre.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Jr7LyG