This is part of what makes this book so deeply strange. It presents us with seemingly familiar figures: the arch-villain seeking to destroy the world, the heroes who oppose the arch-villain. In most such stories, the heroes succeed in thwarting the villain's plot -- they dismantle the bomb, re-seal the Hellmouth, fend off Galactus or save the cheerleader to save the world. That's what makes them heroes. But here, the heroes do not -- cannot -- succeed, because the end of the world is divinely preordained. Read more

The disappearance of two billion people is an astonishing premise, but we're willing to play along. Deus ex machina as starting-point? OK, tell us more. But here we have something that ought to seem familiar and completely natural -- reporters gather for press conference following politician's speech -- and instead it comes across as unimaginably, inhumanly strange. No one talks or acts or thinks in any recognizable way. We are willing to imagine the unimaginable, the fantastical and outlandish. But get the ordinary this wrong and you lose us. Read more