The simplest explanation is usually the most likely--but in the world of Absence, nothing is simple. A moving, richly detailed sci-fi detective procedural for fans of The human population is vanishing, one by one, into thin air: a global cataclysm known as Spontaneous Human Absence. In a world where prospects for survival are increasingly grim--where, at any moment, you or a loved one might “pop” without warning--uncertainty and hopelessness reign. To manage the crisis, the US government has established the Bureau of Depopulation Affairs--an ad hoc federal agency for which Agent Harvey Ellis works the night shift. Harvey’s job: to investigate claims of Absence and, if validated, give the remainders a small benefit check for their loss. It’s thankless bureaucratic work, but Harvey is content in his routine. That is, until a woman long thought Absent reappears in her hometown of Dawnville, Kansas, offering an enticing answer to the world’s most profound mystery: She knows where the Absent go, because she herself has been there. Is her story true, or is she the latest in a line of false prophets, offering empty hope to a desperate world? Together with his quick-witted, no-BS partner, Shonda Erins, Harvey travels to Dawnville--where they assume the role of detective and are quickly drawn into the allure of a new perspective.

Autorentext
Andrew Dana Hudson is a speculative fiction writer, sustainability researcher, teacher, and critical futurist. He is the author of Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures and dozens of short stories and essays appearing in venues like Slate, Lightspeed Magazine, Long Now Ideas, and Jacobin—as well as his newsletter, www.solarshades.club. He lives in Arizona, where he teaches writing, futures thinking, and yoga.

Klappentext

In this gripping, moving, and genre-blending speculative debut, the world is unraveling from an epidemic of human vanishing. Two rookie agents from the Bureau of Depopulation Affairs are dispatched to small-town Kansas to investigate a woman who claims to have returned from Spontaneous Human Absence, offering answers that could change everything.

People are “popping,” disappearing one-by-one, into thin air: an ongoing global cataclysm known as Spontaneous Human Absence. In a world where prospects for survival are increasingly grim, hopelessness prevails, political rifts widen, and doomsday predictions flourish.

Harvey Ellis works the night shift for the Bureau of Depopulation Affairs, an ad hoc federal agency meant to contain and catalog the crisis. His job: to investigate claims of Absence, and, if validated, issue a standard government stipend to boost morale. Still recovering from losses of his own, Harvey is content in his routine—until his life is shaken up by an unexpected assignment from the central office.

A woman long thought Absent has reappeared in her hometown of Dawnville, Kansas, claiming she’s been to the other side and back. Is her story true, or is she just the latest false prophet, offering hope to a world desperate for answers? Together with his no-BS partner Shonda Erins, Harvey travels to Dawnville to find out.

A sweeping portrait of a world beset by confusion and dismay, Andrew Dana Hudson’s debut novel is a vividly imagined speculative mystery of cosmic proportions, examining the stories we tell to get by.