Absence - by Andrew Dana Hudson (Hardcover)

About the Book

"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 catalogue 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"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

Praise for Absence

"A wild, inventive, and extraordinarily prescient novel, Andrew Dana Hudson's Absence unspools a moody detective yarn that quickly vaults sky-high, weighing humankind's slow numbing against daily horrors and faith's struggle against the impossible. And yet most impressively, within its nightmare of spontaneous gradual depopulation, much is made clear of our species' capacity for hope. There simply aren't enough books like it."
--Jinwoo Chong, author of I Leave It Up to You and Flux

"In this engaging, closely observed and intensely humanistic story that reads like Mulder and Scully collecting the immanent evidence of the end of the world, Andrew Dana Hudson helps us see how the real path to a better tomorrow is through rediscovery of the connection and community we have lost."
--Christopher Brown, author of Tropic of Kansas

"Absence is fascinating, shiningly clever, and thought-provoking. A thriller wrapped in dystopian almost-horror wrapped in a perfect enigma, anchored by a grounded and methodic agent named Harvey Ellis. Brilliant!"
--Manda Scott, Edgar-nominated bestselling author of No Good Deed

"A moving, enthralling story, set in a fully realized, beautifully examined world. Don't let this one get away."
--Sara Gran, author of Come Closer and the Claire DeWitt mysteries

Praise for Andrew Dana Hudson

"Hudson has found a way to strike together all the various facets of our rapidly changing climate future, sparking stories that are by turns, and often all at once, ingenious, energetic, provocative, and soulful. He is the face of this new movement in science fiction, and we're lucky to have him."
--Kim Stanley Robinson, Nebula Award-winning author of Red Mars

"A fearless and funny and thought-provoking storyteller, interrogating our current social and cultural moment through a radical speculative lens."
--Sam J. Miller, Nebula Award-winning author of Blackfish City

"A fascinating thought-experiment in imagining worlds to come."
--Christopher Schaberg, author of Searching for the Anthropocene

About the Author

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.