What if an invasion of non-corporeal aliens made everyone kinder and more accepting (if also sort of high most of the time), and also solved climate change? That's where Chana Porter's novel The Seep begins.
At first, and for years after the invasion, trans woman Trina Goldberg-Oneka enjoys these changes along with most of the rest of humankind. But by the time she's fifty, Trina's wife has decided to be reborn as an infant (which is possible, due to the alien substance called Seep, which is how the aliens control humans). Trina is devastated and sinks into alcoholism until a random encounter with a boy who's grown up sheltered from the Seep startles her out of her stupor and into action. (If this seems like a spoiler, don't worry: it's not more than you'd get from the back of the book.)
The Seep is way more upbeat than this semi-dystopian vision may sound, and I appreciated how many questions it hints at but doesn't raise directly, leaving them to readers to ponder (or not). It's one of the weirder books I've read lately, but in the best possible way: it was refreshing and original and I couldn't guess how it would end. If you enjoy alien invasion stories, or if you're interested in a very different vision of the future, this novel might be for you.
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