Invisible Things

A sharp allegorical novel about a hidden human civilization,a crucial electionand a mysterious invisible force that must not be namedby one of our most imaginative comic novelists LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD ΓÇó ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post When sociologist Nalini Jackson joins the SS Delany for the first manned mission to Jupiterall she wants is a career opportunity: the chance to conduct the first field study of group dynamics on long-haul cryoships. But what she discovers instead is an entire city encased in a bubble on EuropaJupiterΓÇÖs largest moon. Even more unexpectedNalini and the rest of the crew soon find themselves abducted and joining its captive populationforced to start new lives in a place called New Roanoke. New Roanoke is a city riven by wealth inequality and governed by a fecklesspredatory eliteits economy run on heedless consumption and income inequality. But in other ways itΓÇÖs different from the cities we already know: itΓÇÖs covered by an enormous domeitΓÇÖs populated by alien abducteesand it happens to be terrorized by an invisible entity so disturbing that no one even dares acknowledge its existence. Albuquerque chauffer Chase Eubanks is pretty darn sure aliens stole his wife. People mock him for saying thatbut he doesnΓÇÖt care who knows it. So when his philanthropist boss funds a top-secret rescue mission to save New RoanokeΓÇÖs abducteesChase jumps at the chance to find her. The plan: Get the astronauts out and provide the population with the tech they need to escape this alien world. The reality: Nothing is ever simple when dealing with the complexcontradictoryand contrarian impulses of everyday earthlings. This is a madcapsurreal adventure into a Jovian mirror worldone grappling with the same polarized politicsexistential crisesand mass denialism that obsess and divide our own. Will New Roanoke survive? Will we?