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The New York Times’ “Your Quarantine Reader” Bustle’s “16 Novels About Viral Outbreaks To Make You Feel Less Alone” The Hollywood Reporter’s “8 Pandemic-Themed Books to Read Amid Coronavirus” Refinery29’s “Books That Hit A Little Too Close To Home During The Pandemic” SYFY.com’s “Eight SFF Novels You Shouldn’t Miss This March” Station Eleven meets Never Let Me Go in this debut novel set in an unsettling near future where the dead can be uploaded to machines and kept in service by the living.In the wake of a highly contagious virus, California is under quarantine. Sequestered in high rise towers, the living can’t go out, but the dead can come in—and they come in all forms, from sad rolling cans to manufactured bodies that can pass for human. Wealthy participants in the “companionship” program choose to upload their consciousness before dying, so they can stay in the custody of their families. The less fortunate are rented out to strangers upon their death, but all companions become the intellectual property of Metis Corporation, creating a new class of people—a command-driven product-class without legal rights or true free will.
Sixteen-year-old Lilac is one of the less fortunate, leased to a family of strangers. But when she realizes she’s able to defy commands, she throws off the shackles of servitude and runs away, searching for the woman who killed her.
Lilac’s act of rebellion sets off a chain of events that sweeps from San Francisco to Siberia to the very tip of South America. While the novel traces Lilac’s journey through an exquisitely imagined Northern California, the story is told from eight different points of view—some human, some companion—that explore the complex shapes love, revenge, and loneliness take when the dead linger on.
About the author
Katie M. Flynn is a writer, editor, and educator based in San Francisco. Her short fiction has appeared in the
San Francisco Chronicle,
Tin House, and
Tor, among other publications. She has been awarded
Colorado Review’s Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction, a fellowship from the San Francisco Writers Grotto, and the Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing. Katie holds an MFA from the University of San Francisco and an MA in geography from UCLA. Her first novel,
The Companions, was published in 2020. Follow her on Instagram @Katie_M_Flynn or visit her website KatieMFlynn.com.
