The story follows the Stranger (the Courier, the Stowaway, the Traveller…) as she journeys across Earth in an attempt to contact someone. At first very little is given away about who she is, where she is from, or who she is looking for and why. These details trickle through the more places she goes and the more people she meets.

We get a lot of small glimpses at such a wealth of world building throughout the book. A divide between the humans that left Earth many years ago and those who stayed behind. A post-climate catastrophe Earth and how humans have adapted to the world. A new religious world order and how and why it sprang from previous events. The tip of an iceberg of the larger world beyond the reaches of Earth in outer space. And so much more. It’s so rich and vivid and there is still so much left to be explored.

Each chapter is a like a little self-contained short story, all building a bigger picture of this Earth and those who were left behind. Threads and elements from all the previous chapters come back to add depth and plot and detail to the story in later chapters. I ate that shit up, it was so satisfying.

It was an easy read, always leaving me wanting more, but I paced myself in order to really make the book last. I didn’t want it to be over too quickly. By the time I reached halfway I was completely in love with the book and just hoping for a ending that did it justice. I wasn’t disappointed. The ending wasn’t too stressful or dramatic, but wasn’t underwhelming either. It was perfect, and continued to pull details from throughout the story to tie it all together.

A longer review can be read on my book blog: Marvel at Words.