Set in 2014, the story begins in Marquette, Michigan, after a small meteor falls to Earth. When advertising exec Carole Veilleux—unknowingly infected by a tick days earlier—bites bakery owner Booker, she begins a chain reaction that spreads the strange contamination (the “mind-merge thing”) throughout Marquette and eventually all over the world. Billions of people become part of the hive mind: Booker’s preteen child, Layla, who wants to transition to a boy; autistic cop Lana Lannister; 61-year-old Jewish doctor Evelyn Schlapp, who’s having an affair with her rabbi; and more. Within weeks, the people of Marquette were “reindeer herders in Sápmi, Scandinavian furries with mixed fursonas. They were the Bajau Darat, forced out of the sea to live a sedentary life, they were Lego designers, Maasai, Kazakhs, Swiss bankers and snake milkers. They were David Bowie. That was really… cool.” Even hate-filled people like neo-Nazi thug William Willoughby find themselves seeing the world through more compassionate and accepting eyes. Suddenly, everyone knows everything about everyone else. Humankind becomes collectively more intelligent, more understanding. Months pass and humans make jaw-dropping scientific and societal advances. But what would happen if the hive mind suddenly disappeared and the world’s populace was forced to return to living with only their individual thoughts and limited knowledge? The speculation surrounding the planet’s organisms (humans, animals, plants, etc.) being part of a massive hive mind is intriguing, particularly as it deals with issues like racism, sexism, and systemic discrimination. The potential is there for some brass knuckles-to-the-skull revelations, but the payoff is decidedly underwhelming: “The best people could do was to try and make [the world] a tiny bit better.”
