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In his 2010 CBC Massey Lectures acclaimed novelist and visual artist Douglas Coupland explores the modern crises of time, human identity, society, religion and macroeconomics and the afterlife in the form of a novel, a 5-hour story set in an airport cocktail lounge during a global disaster. Five disparate people are trapped inside: Karen, a single mother waiting for her online date; Rick, the down-on-his-luck airport lounge bartender; Luke, a pastor on the run; Rachel, a cool Hitchcock blonde incapable of true human contact; and finally a mysterious voice known as Player One.

Massive climate change has caused a winter that will not thaw, and it seems that the forces of nature have turned on humanity itself. But in the sleepy British village of Pateley, one special girl may hold the key to the earth’s survival.Wyn, an orphan, has always known that she is different. Unable to feel the biting cold of wind and snow of Pateley’s endless winter, she does what she can to blend in.

<p><i>Kaspoit!</i> puts speculative illustration to the most profuse series of crimes ever to take place on Canadian soil. Set in the lower mainland of Vancouver, the time is now—criminals are brazen, cops are cynical—and no one is trying to solve the disappearance of dozens of women.</p> <p>Throughout, the novel conveys a savage, dystopian depiction of a netherworld teeming with gangland crime, sexual exploitation, betrayal and murder.

Sole survivor of a suicide pact, Ang has fallen into an underground music scene obsessed with the idea of the end of the world. But when the end finally does come, Ang and her friends don’t find the liberation they expected. Instead, those still alive are starving, strung out and struggling to survive in a world that no longer makes sense. As Ang navigates the world’s final days, her emotional and physical instability mix with growing uncertainty and she begins to distrust her perception in a place where nothing can ever be trusted for what it seems to be.