It’s definitely not magic: a computer has written a Harry Potter novel and it is beyond terrible. The tome was produced by Botnik, which, according to the company’s website, is “a community of writers, artists and developers collaborating with machines to create strange new things.”


The outcome is the majestically named Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash. Needless to say, JK Rowling needn’t be concerned about the robots jacking her steez any time soon. At the most, the bot-written novel might be adapted into a so-bad-it’s-good movie, but you can be certain that Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint would give it a wide berth.

How’s this for an opening line? “The castle grounds snarled with a wave of magically magnified wind.” Some people say that fiction is just a load of bloody hot air – and on this occasion they would be correct.

Sometimes, the bots come up with a plausible sentence or two. “‘Death eaters are on tops of the castle!’ Ron bleated” is actually sort-of not bad, is it? Like, it’s better than anything in Morrissey’s novel. There are lows, though: “The password was BEEF WOMEN,” Hermione cried.” Many readers noted that the Harry Potter books became more textured and layered, more deftly written, as the universe created by JK Rowling expanded through the seven main novels. Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash has, to put it politely, reversed that trend.


Rowling has become big on Twitter in recent years, but is yet to comment on Harry Bot-ter. The ‘bots may become more accomplished scribes over time, and perhaps she’s been spooked by one line in their book: “The dark arts better be worried, oh boy!”