From the Bookshelf of Tyler Public Library…

[close] Genius! Adam Dearden has been ferried to Normal Head, an asylum dedicated to treating only futurists. "Everyone here gazed into the abyss for a living". Normal is filled with those "who have tried to look into the future in order to try to save the world and have been driven insane by it."
Witty and insightful, Ellis's writing has much to say about technology. Adam has worked as both a "civil futurist (smart city planning) and as a strategic forecaster , or spook futurist ( drone warfare & world- wide political upheaval), and the stress of the job has undone him. Shortly after Adam arrives at Normal, a patient disappears from his locked room, leaving only a huge pile of insects behind. Adam unearths a conspiracy that will have readers flipping pages quickly, reminding us that "we have quite literally no idea what is loose in the world, looking at and listening to us, and who it is looking and listening for.... We are now in a place where we will never again have a private conversation." Ellis gives readers much to think about in this brief novel. Highly recommended.