GENERATION A

"In the near future bees are extinct - until five unconnected individuals,in different parts of the wowrld, are stung. Immediately snatched up byominous figures in hazmat suits, interrogated searately in neutralIkea-like chambers, and then released as 15-minute-celebrities into a worlddriven almost entirely by the internet, these five unforgettable peopleendure a barrage of unusual and highly 21st-century circumstances. Acharismatic scientist with dubious motives eventually brings the quintettogether, and their shared experience unites them in a way they could neverhave imagined. Generation A mirrors the structure of 1991's Generation X asit champions the act of reading and storytelling as one of the few defenceswe still have against the constant bombardment of the senses in a digitalworld. Like much of Coupland's writing, it occupies the perplexinghinterland between optimism about the future and everyday, apocalypticparanoia, and is his most ambitious and entertaining novel to date."