Released April 22, 2014

An NPR Best Book of 2014

A Kirkus Best Fiction Book of 2014

Finalist for the John W. Campbell and Lamda Literary awards.

An Amazon Editor’s Choice for April, as well as a Library Journal Starred Book and a Kirkus Starred Book and Best Bet.

“Powerful, violent science fiction in the tradition of William Gibson and Peter Watts.”—Tor.

Excerpt on Tor.com.

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Hardback: ISBN: 9780765336927 | $26.99 / $31.00 Can. Hardback | 320 pages
Ebook: ISBN: 9781466829282

About the book

It begins in Toronto, in the years after the smart drug revolution. Any high school student with a chemjet and internet connection can download recipes and print drugs, or invent them. A seventeen-year-old street girl finds God through a new brain-altering drug called Numinous, used as a sacrament by a new Church that preys on the underclass. But she is arrested and put into detention, and without the drug, commits suicide.

Lyda Rose, another patient in that detention facility, has a dark secret: she was one of the original scientists who developed the drug. With the help of an ex-government agent and an imaginary, drug-induced doctor, Lyda sets out to find the other three survivors of the five who made the Numinous in a quest to set things right.

A mind-bending and violent chase across Canada and the US, Afterparty is a marvelous mix of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Philip K. Dick’s Ubik, and perhaps a bit of Peter Watts’s Starfish: a last chance to save civilization, or die trying.

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews (starred review):  “This taut, brisk, gripping narrative, dazzlingly intercut with flashbacks and sidebars, oozes warmth and wit. A hugely entertaining, surprising and perhaps prophetic package that, without seeming to, raises profound questions about the human mind and the nature of perception.” Full Review.

Library Journal (starred review): “…Gregory (Pandemonium; Raising Stony Mayhall) takes on the pharmaceutical industry, drug dealers, religion, and the intricacies of how our brains work. The way the author combines the energy of a thriller with the ideas of sf is reminiscent of William Gibson’s best one-step-into-the-future novels like Pattern Recognition.” Full Review.

Jason Sheehan, NPR: “[Afterparty] stakes its territory early as a second-generation biopunk (or, perhaps, pharmapunk) tale and holds that ripe ground throughout.” Full Review.

Toronto Star: “Funny, fast-paced, and wickedly observant, Gregory has written a great SF thriller full of memorable moments, with a water boarding in a day-glo hair salon being among the most inspired.” Full Review.

Publishers Weekly: “Gregory dashes off his near-future story like a ‘chemjet’ printing out sheets of smart drugs…The tragi-comical satire dispenses with sermons and easy morals, preferring to be entertaining and thought-provoking instead.” Full Review.

RT Book Reviews (four stars): “Gregory’s world-building is top-notch… Afterparty is a story with hefty implications but Gregory wisely keeps the focus tightly on Lyda and her friends and ex-friends, giving the story as much emotional as conceptual impact.” Full Review.

Gary K. Wolfe, Locus Magazine: “Daryl Gregory’s Afterparty is almost certainly the only novel you’ll read this year which calls to mind both Huxley’s The Doors of Perception and the damaged tough guys of contemporary crime fiction; both Philip K. Dick and Tony Kushner. The very satisfying result is likely to prove his most popular novel.”

Karen Burnham, SF Signal: “And the way he takes a moment of intense crisis, then tells us the story of what happened afterwards–what happens to the people who don’t necessarily live happily ever after a huge traumatic event turns their lives upside down–makes him one of my hands-down favorite authors.” Full Review.

Andrew Liptak, io9: “Daryl Gregory’s Afterparty is a fantastic thrill ride, presenting an all-too-real future that upends our own world and replaces it with something far more strange. This is science fiction of the cutting edge, on par with stories such as William Gibson’s Neuromancer, McIntosh’s Soft Apocalypse and Orphan Black.” Full Review.

Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing: “Afterparty is a new, excellent science fiction novel by Daryl Gregory, about drugs, God, sanity, morals, and organized crime… Gregory is a great plotter, and the story races along like a thriller, but mountains more substance than your typical thriller.” Full Review.

Chuck Francisco, Mania Entertainment: “AFTERPARTY is a wickedly devious romp through the lowest end echelon of first world society. Daryl Gregory crafts a tale in the very best veins of William Gibson. Full Review.

Sarah Chorn, Bookworm Blues: “Amazing. Absolutely astoundingly amazing. Afterparty is smart, but it never talks over your head. It’s funny, but with that dark tone that feels just so right… I can’t even figure out a star rating for it. Just read the damn book. You’ll see.” Full review.

Russell Letson, Locus Magazine: “This is a real science-fiction crime thriller: the old evils and insanities are all there, given new twists by the double-edged blades of science and technology. And, like the best crime and SF novels, those moral and philosophical questions linger, after the mere whodunnit puzzles have been solved.”

Faren Miller, Locus Magazine: “Well before Afterparty concludes with ‘The Parable of the Faithful Atheist”, it’s clear that Daryl Gregory continues to be one of the top writers in a field where literature works alongside adventure–and both forms benefit from the exchange.”

BookGasm: “Lyda, then, is a fucked-up Philip Marlowe with a Ph.D., deeply damaged, cynical and on the side of right. AFTERPARTY works brilliantly as noir… [but] it’s also a kick-ass extrapolation of our own chemical romances and the latest discoveries in cognitive science… AFTERPARTY is all rave: a high-energy, mind-blowing blast that further confirms Gregory’s standing as one of the smartest, most dizzyingly acrobatic writers on the scene.” Full Review.

Byron Brewer, Cosmic Book News: “It has been a long time since I have read a book of such wide scope, one that defies genre type such as Afterparty. Has writer Daryl Gregory (BOOM! Studios’ Planet of the Apes comic book series) given us another zombie romp, a superhero novella or a supernatural thriller for the ages? Yes, yes and yes.” Full review.

Praise from colleagues

“Smart, funny, fast, more than a little terrifying…. An exhilarating read.”
Kim Stanley Robinson, Hugo Award-winning author of the Mars trilogy

“Afterparty is a great giggling psychedelic trip down the big pharma rabbit hole to a place where designer drugs hack the human mind for its limitless potential, and madness, empathy, talking teddy bears and the face of God are all just a hit away. Load up the pharmaceutical printer, drop Daryl Gregory’s words on your tongue, and get ready to trip hard.”
Paolo Bacigalupi, Hugo and Nebula Award Winning author of The Windup Girl.

“Daryl Gregory’s Afterparty is why we write science fiction: to explore issues, to tackle themes, to provoke, and, yes, to entertain. It’s all here in a page-turner about big ideas, a thriller about moral choices, a breathless ride into a down-and-dirty tomorrow.”
Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Red Planet Blues

“Every new novel by Daryl Gregory goes to the top of my reading pile. Afterparty is his best yet, combining interesting ideas about religion and the brain with the distinctive Gregory brand of wit and the superb Gregory writing. I can’t recommend this novel highly enough!”
Nancy Kress, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of Beggars from Spain.

“Brain-stretching speculation in brain science and metaphysics, built on a solid cyberpunk foundation.  I really liked this one.”
Walter Jon Williams, author of This is Not a Game.

“Afterparty is a novel so good it had to wait for Daryl Gregory to write it. Like NME 110, the book’s God drug, Gregory opens doors in our heads that we didn’t even know were there.  This is a great read.”
Jack Skillingstead, author of Life on the Preservation

“Afterparty is a chilling and thoroughly believable glimpse of a possible future.  More than that, it is simultaneously a thriller, a mystery, and a story about how humans experience the numinous.”
Brenda Cooper, futurist and author of The Creative Fire and The Diamond Deep

“Seriously, you need to read this book now. The day after tomorrow could be too late.”
Peter Watts, Hugo Award-winning author of Blindsight.

“This does for the renegade future world of worldview-altering designer drugs what William Gibson did for computers in the early 1980s. Gregory’s amusing, quick-paced and laconic style deftly dodges cliches and gives us a new highpoint in the subgenre of Future Noir.”
Gregory Benford, Nebula Award-winning author of Timescape

“A technothriller that asks big, philosophical questions and catches the answers on the hoof. It’s smart, stoned neurofiction for the post-everything world.”
Cory Doctorow, Campbell Award-winning author of Little Brother.