Death used to impose a boundary. Photographs remained, recordings survived and memories passed from one generation to the next, but eventually every conversation ended. Then artificial intelligence made memory interactive.

What begins as a humane attempt to preserve voices, family stories and the memories of people facing illness gradually becomes something much larger. AI replicas move from memorial services into homes, hospitals, schools, workplaces, inheritance law and public life. Children grow up speaking with grandparents who died before they were born. Companies retain the expertise of workers long after death. Families inherit not only property but personalities, while governments are eventually forced to protect digital identities as part of society's infrastructure.

The Dead Who Kept Talking is a speculative future history of the ordinary decisions that transformed remembrance into continuing presence—and of the society that eventually had to decide whether preserving someone forever was the same thing as refusing to let them go.