Wobbling Star

Does tasking an AI with learning to become a fiction writing assistant set it on the pathway to sentience?

When Henri Kourtney agrees to ferry torg-hunting tourists to the wilderness of a backwoods planet, he postpones his ambition to explore the stars. Henri hopes the expedition allows him time to get to know the cute girl from Earth and maybe land him an interstellar berth with her astrophysicist cousin. He doesn't expect that his angry ex-girlfriend will join the trip, that the tourists are more interested in satellite-image planetography than torg, that torg are not native to the planet, or that his new AI digital assistant's constant bickering over the writing style of his journal is the birth pang of sentience. The biggest surprise is that a mineral-encrusted artifact conceals a purpose as mundane as a subway token, and that all their lives will depend on whether the cosmic subway still runs. 

—The dreams you imagine are not always as good as the reality you get.

Wobbling Star is a coming-of-age interstellar adventure and romance.