I've always loved books that ask something from the reader.
Epic fantasy series, long novels with dozens of characters, stories where places and names slowly build meaning over hundreds of pages. The kind of books that feel rewarding precisely because they don't hand everything to you at once.
But at some point, I realised I was no longer struggling with the story itself. I was struggling with memory.
Who was this character again?
Where did we last see them?
Why does this place sound familiar?
At first, I did what most readers do.
I flipped back a few pages.
I reread earlier chapters.
I searched online, carefully trying not to spoil myself.
Sometimes I just pushed forward, hoping things would become clear again.
None of these felt like good solutions. They all pulled me out of the book.
From books to screens. And back again
Like many readers, I gradually moved from paper books to e-readers.
E-readers solved many practical problems: portability, lighting, instant access to entire libraries. But they also introduced something new — software into the reading experience.
And that made me wonder:
What if technology could help readers without making reading feel more digital?
Not by turning books into dashboards.
Not by surrounding them with buttons, menus, or assistants.
But by quietly supporting the reader inside the text itself.
That question stayed with me for a long time.
The wrong direction: making reading "more interactive"
If you look at many modern attempts to "improve" reading, they tend to go in one direction:
- Ask questions to an AI
- Select text and request explanations
- Interrupt the flow with chat interfaces
- Turn the book into something you operate instead of read
That never felt right to me.
When I read, I don't want to talk to software.
I want to stay inside the story.
Fantasy Read was never meant to be a conversation with a machine.
It was meant to feel like the book itself had grown a quiet companion.
The original idea (before AI)
The core idea behind Fantasy Read existed long before the current wave of AI tools.
I wanted a reader that could:
- remember characters and places for me
- show context only up to the point I've reached
- let me tap a name and immediately understand it
- never spoil what comes next
- never interrupt the reading flow
In other words: a more powerful book, not a smarter chatbot.
The problem was simple. Doing this manually would require enormous effort. Every book would need to be carefully annotated, updated, and maintained.
It wasn't realistic.
So the idea stayed unfinished. For years.
The Sage Was Born
At some point, the idea stopped being about features and started to feel more like a presence.
I didn't want a tool I had to operate while reading.
I didn't want an assistant I had to consult.
I didn't want to interrupt the book to ask questions.
What I wanted was something quieter.
In Fantasy Read, that presence became the Sage.
The Sage isn't someone you talk to.
The Sage doesn't ask for attention.
The Sage doesn't pull you away from the page.
Instead, the Sage leaves small, timely notes inside the book — exactly where they are useful.
You tap a name, a place, a concept, and you see a short explanation that feels like it was written for this moment in the story. As if someone who knows the book well leaned over and whispered:
"Here's what you need to remember right now."
Not ahead.
Not behind.
Just here.
That was always the vision:
a reading companion that supports understanding without breaking immersion.
For a long time, that vision remained unfinished. Creating and maintaining this kind of contextual guidance manually, for every book, simply wasn't realistic.
What changed
What finally made Fantasy Read possible wasn't the desire to add intelligence to books, it was the ability to hide complexity.
Modern technology can now do the heavy lifting invisibly:
- tracking characters and places as they appear
- understanding how context evolves over time
- preparing notes that only reflect what the reader has already seen
All of that happens once, in the background.
What the reader experiences is simple:
- the book
- the story
- and the Sage's quiet notes, woven into the text
There are no loading spinners.
No "thinking" states.
No feeling that something digital is happening.
The technology disappears.
The book remains.
What Fantasy Read is — and what it isn't
Fantasy Read is not:
- a chat interface
- a question-answering tool
- a way to interrogate books
- a replacement for reading
Fantasy Read is:
- a reader that respects immersion
- a companion that supports memory, not attention
- a way to read complex stories with confidence
- an attempt to augment books without changing what makes them special
The Sage exists to serve the story, not to compete with it.
Why I'm sharing this
Fantasy Read is still early.
The Sage will evolve. There may be different kinds of notes in the future. Perhaps even notes written by authors themselves, or richer companions for readers who want more.
But the foundation matters.
I wanted to articulate this philosophy clearly before the product speaks for itself.
Fantasy Read isn't about adding intelligence on top of books.
It's about letting books quietly become more supportive companions.
If you love complex stories, and you want help without interruption, Fantasy Read and the Sage were built with you in mind.
— V.