Small Great World

Jonathan Evison’s Small World is an epic novel for now. Set against such iconic backdrops as the California gold rush, the development of the transcontinental railroad, and a speeding train of modern-day strangers forced together by fate, it is a grand entertainment that asks big questions. The characters of Small World connect in the most intriguing and meaningful ways, winning, breaking, and winning our hearts again.

“What’s wrong?” The bigger geroo asked, twisting Kanti’s helmet free. “Can’t breathe?” The commissioner accidentally let his last cleaning crew starve to death. So now, Kanti and 49 of his teammates will have to spend the rest of their lives in a one-room barracks, with only a single airlock protecting them from the planet’s poisonous atmosphere. Surrounded by towering monsters, on a world where the very air is lethal, mysterious burrowing strangers are pushing the crew into a panic. Will Kanti be able to keep them from tearing each other apart?

A year after her divorce, Joyce is settling into being single again. She likes her job archiving family photos and videos, and she’s developed a secret comforting hobby: trolling the neighborhood social networking site, Small World, for posts that help solve life’s easiest problems. When her older sister Lydia, also divorced, calls to tell her she’s moving back east from Los Angeles after almost thirty years away, Joyce invites Lydia to move into her Cambridge apartment. Temporarily. Just until she finds a place of her own.