…or IS IT?
Let’s say ALIEN INTELLIGENCES want to screw with you, Philip K Dick style. You’re at home, receiving most of your information about the outside world through a screen. You have been told by the screen that your novel will be published next week. This book is all about how you can’t trust anything your brain tells you. It has a character who is PARANOID because she can see PATTERNS in the NOISE. You are almost certain you wrote this book.
The screen brings you EMAIL from REAL PEOPLE who claim to have read the advanced copies of the book. REVIEWS appear on the screen, and you dutifully send links to these pages to other REAL PEOPLE who appear on a screen labeled TWITTER. But what proof do you really have? What if the ALIEN INTELLIGENCES want you to remain CALM and WAIT?
Then, a box arrives in the mail. It is not a metaphorical container, like DropBox. It is REAL.
The BOX contains this:
There are many copies of the book you thought you wrote. You are happy, and relieved. The book is REAL!
And then you think, wait a minute. What if this is the ONLY BOX? That’s just the kind of thing that ALIEN INTELLIGENCES would do.
You have a week to wait before it is scheduled to appear in any other bookstore. You can do nothing but wait. Nothing but type this into the screen and click PUBLISH. Because that is something a REAL PERSON would do.
You know only one thing for sure: This will be a LONG WEEK.
Daryl Gregory 
Hi, Daryl. I’ve been eagerly awaiting this book. Awesome. Although I’m not sure how safe it is for me to become too aware that my brain and I aren’t exactly the same thing. lol
Read your Amazon Daily interview and immediately bought Afterparty for my Kindle. Didn’t even try a sample first. Rare for me to be so impulsive.
When will Afterparty be released on kindle in the UK? The sample hooked me!
Reading Afterparty on my Kindle (when I can pry it out of my wife’s hands….the Kindle should go on the list of things that cannot be shared in a successful marriage along with bathrooms and closets) and loving it. Had hoped to get to your book signing at B&N but life with kids interfered. Nice to see someone from my current hometown (24 years today as a matter of fact as it is our wedding anniversary) writing such great stuff. Hope you come back this way again.
Just read Afterparty — in two days. Great stuff! I think I figured out the initials of the “author” of the “Parables” scattered through the book — G.I.E.D. = Gloria in Excelsis Deo. Am I right?
If I answer, that will spoil the fun!
Thanks for reading, C.K., and for taking the time to tell me you liked it.
Hey Daryl, I have really really enjoyed this one. Pure genius!!
Keep up the great work and whatever you do, just keep writing ‘cos I can’t get enough of your work. I am hooked for life!!
Your number one fan from Gibraltar(I hope you do remember me…unless the aliens have messed with our brains and our communication was a figment of our imagination from another dimension!!!).
Hi Craig! Of course I remember you. I just got back from your part of the world. I was in London for Worldcon, and just got back last night. I just had a bad thought — were you there and I missed you?
Thanks for the kind words on Afterparty. So glad you dug it. And I’ll take your advice and keep writing!