In late-twenty-first-century Australia, Tao-Yi and her partner Navin spend most of their time inside an immersive, consumerist virtual reality called Gaia. They log on, go to work, socialise and even eat in this digital utopia. Meanwhile, their aging bodies lie suspended in pods inside cramped apartments.

Across the city, in the abandoned real world, Tao-Yi's mother remains stubbornly offline, dwindling away between hospital visits and memories of her earlier life in Malaysia.

When a new technology is developed to permanently upload a human brain to Gaia, Tao-Yi must decide what is most important: a digital future or an authentic past.

"With an intriguing blend of cli-fi, philosophy of mind and transhumanist themes, Grace Chan's novel delivers striking science fiction steeped in absurdity and dystopian menace" - SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

"It's like Ready Player One meets Station Eleven and Ex Machina, and it's the book I can't stop thinking about this year" - TIME OUT

"Confronting what might one day be left on a ruined, 'offline' Earth is a powerful way to refocus the lens on the world we are presently creating, and the politics informing what we build - whether it's from bricks or code" - GUARDIAN