by Jack Dann
First published 1985
In the glittering wasteland of the next century, a man pursues his desperate search across a transformed world. His woman vanished during a global epidemic of telepathic terror that swept through humanity, leaving him alone in a landscape where the rules of existence have fundamentally changed. He navigates a society where people stake their own body parts in gambling games, where the refitted HMS Titanic offers passengers a final voyage with optional suicide, and where technology allows the living to experience the thoughts of the dead. His quest takes him through this strange new world where thrills come in countless forms and death itself has become just another frontier to explore. Every step forward in his search reveals more about what humanity has become in this apocalyptic future. The central tension drives him onward: finding the woman he lost while navigating a world where telepathic fear has reshaped civilization itself. His journey becomes both a literal search for a missing person and an emotional exploration of love, loss, and what it means to remain human when the very nature of consciousness has been altered.
Genres: science-fiction, dystopia, 21st-century, apocalyptic
Vibes: dark, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: altered-consciousness, quest
264 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Bantam Spectra
Content warnings: death, mental-illness