Cheltenham PABC: After World by Debbie Urbanski (368 pages)

As voted on in the May session, in July we will read After World by Debbie Urbanski.

There is a nominal fee of £2 for each session from January 2025 onwards. This is to contribute to the cost of hosting the group on Meetup.com.

The payment link for July is here: https://monzo.me/devonedwards-joseph/2.00?d=July%20book%20club%20%F0%9F%93%9A&h=m0-iif

Feel free to arrive from 6.30pm if you'd like to meet people, get a drink, and have a chat before we start the book discussion at 6.45pm.

The expectation is that you will buy, borrow, or stream the book and read or listen ahead of the session, and then we will discuss it together.

This particular book is available for 'free' as an audiobook if you have a Spotify premium subscription.

You do not have to have finished the whole thing to attend, as long as you don't mind spoilers. :)

How to find us:
I have booked a table for us at The Swan under my name (Devon) - the bar staff will be able to direct you to it.
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Book description:

"
Faced with the uncontrolled and accelerating environmental collapse, humanity asks an artificial intelligence to find a solution. Its answer is simple: remove humans from the ecosystem.

Sen Anon is assigned to be a witness for the Department of Transition, recording the changes in the environment as the world begins to rewild. Abandoned by her mother in a cabin somewhere in upstate New York, Sen will observe the monumental ecological shift known as the Great Transition, the final step in Project Afterworld. Around her drones buzz, cameras watch, microphones listen, digitizing her every move. Privately she keeps a journal of her observations, which are then uploaded and saved, joining the rest of humanity on Maia, a new virtual home. Sen was seventeen years old when the Digital Human Archive Project (DHAP) was initiated. 12,000,203,891 humans have been archived so far. Only Sen remains.

[storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc’s assignment is to capture Sen’s life, and they set about doing this using the novels of the 21st century as a roadmap. As Sen struggles to persist in the face of impending death, [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc works to unfurl the tale of Sen’s whole life, offering up an increasingly intimate narrative until they are confronted with a very human problem of their own.

"