In the near future bees are extinct - until five unconnected individuals, in different parts of the world, are stung. Immediately snatched up by ominous figures in hazmat suits, interrogated searately in neutral Ikea-like chambers, and then released as 15-minute-celebrities into a world driven almost entirely by the internet, these five unforgettable people endure a barrage of unusual and highly 21st-century circumstances. A charismatic scientist with dubious motives eventually brings the quintet together, and their shared experience unites them in a way they could never have imagined.

Generation Amirrors the structure of 1991'sGeneration Xas it champions the act of reading and storytelling as one of the few defences we still have against the constant bombardment of the senses in a digital world. Like much of Coupland's writing, it occupies the perplexing hinterland between optimism about the future and everyday, apocalyptic paranoia, and is his most ambitious and entertaining novel to date.

DOUGLAS COUPLAND was born on a NATO base in Germany in 1961. He is the author of the international bestseller JPOD and ten other novels including THE GUM THIEF, HEY NOSTRADAMUS!, ALL FAMILIES ARE PSYCHOTIC AND GENERATION X. His books have been translated into thirty-five languages and published in most countries around the world. He is also a visual artist and sculptor, furniture designer and screenwriter. He lives and works in Vancouver.

From the author of JPod and Generation X, the bestselling generational classic, comes a dazzling new work that reimagines the very act of reading and storytelling in a crazed digital world.