This article gives us one passionate side of the situation. It would be nice to be a fly on the wall during the lead up conversations between HarperCollins and Mr. Cole&#x27;s agent prior to the final decision being made.<p>Perhaps the story is as straight forward as Mr. Cole represented it; that HarperCollins declined to publish the novel because of the nature of the AI conflict described. Personally, it strikes me as oddly simplistic, and lacking in other context, given the success that Mr. Cole&#x27;s previous work brought the publisher.