Acts of God by Kanan Gill

Description

Channelling the craft of Neil Gaiman, the humour of Douglas Adams and the genius of Terry Pratchett, Kanan Gill weaves a story that will surprise you. It refuses to take itself seriously, yet raises the most serious of questions – what does it mean to be human?

In a post-nuclear winter world, now free from borders, war, poverty and overpopulation, the smartest man on the planet is working on the most illegal thing imaginable. Once a celebrated scientist for whom the Authority had to come up with an entirely new ‘Genius Category 3’, Dr K has resigned as the head of the Scientific Institute and now spends his days in a hungover, crotchety haze, relegated to working on a trifling project. But unknown to everyone else, he obsessively simulates universes, intervening in these simulations, and when they fail to achieve what he wants, terminating them.

But all of his delicate interventions to nudge these simulated realities in the right direction inevitably come up short against the most unlikely spanner in the works: bumbling private detective P. Manjunath.

In Kanan Gill’s wildly entertaining and unexpectedly moving debut novel, a Danish policeman accidentally becomes a clothing-optional leader of a worldwide group of science haters, a sentient piece of wall struggles with the limits of its artistic expression, and a lapel pin’s habit of always giving truthful advice causes chaos. Blending vivid inventiveness and uproarious storytelling with an intriguing interrogation of the very nature of existence, Acts of God marks the evolution of one of our finest comedic voices.