As Long as Rain

The Loopies—two alien species bound to each other in a marriage of convenience—have subdued the human race. Its people sterilised, and pacified with a linguistic disease, the world is a retirement village with Comma nurses waiting on the sick of mind—and sick to the back teeth in the case of Libby Lavers, the only unimpaired HS left. But Libby's escape feels a little easy, a little choreographed. More

Why not just kill us all? I had asked. He tried to look unmalignant: A, Libby, we have, and B, too much smell, too much of an emission all at once.

The Loopies—two alien species bound to each other in a marriage of convenience—have subdued the human race. Its people sterilised, and pacified with a linguistic disease, the world is a retirement village with Comma nurses waiting on the sick of mind—and sick to the back teeth in the case of Libby Lavers.
Libby alone is unimpaired, the only HS conceived after the takeover. To liberate the planet, he will escape his small-town tourist trap at the end of the world, escape the world itself, and what? Laser them all down from above? Doubtful. But McKinnon, the Comma, has a plan. In the heart of a city broken by the grammarhammer is a weapon. Surely the alien on the level, and Libby is not just his pawn like the Selkirk of the rainforest suggests.
The task is impossible. Must that entail that it necessarily can’t be done? Yes it must. How then does Libby Lavers succeed?
‘China Miéville and Margaret Atwood meet the ghosts of Philip K. Dick and Douglas Adams in a dubious quotation on a book blurb.’