In The Chronoliths, giant monuments appear out of nowhere, apparently sent back through time to celebrate a military victory some years in the future. Brilliant premise. So the whole of the human race then becomes obsessed with how this future war comes to take place, who wins, and how the monuments are sent back. More and more arrive, and the world descends into convincing chaos. The narrative voice is that of a sorry (as in he feels sorry) slacker, who spends his life trying to compensate for his earlier failures, and finds himself – against his will and against his instincts – caught up in events.

This story could be so easily filmed. The only CGI would be the relatively trivial presentation of the monolithic structures, and if you wanted to push the boat out, you could portray the appearance of one of them in real time, as it were. Everything else is all about people, about relationships, and about ideas.