Loss Protocol
A mesmerising ecological thriller from 'one of Britain's best SF writers' (The Guardian)
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- Published: Feb 12 2026
- 240 x 160mm
- ISBN: 9781399635561
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'A beautiful story of intrigue and mystery' PETER F. HAMILTON
'Loss Protocol is Paul McAuley on top form' KIM NEWMAN
'An eco-thriller like no other from one of Britain's best SF writers' THE GUARDIAN
'Which one feels realer, truer. The world we lived in most of our lives, or the world we dreamed up?'
Eight years after the catastrophic downfall of the cult his sister Izzy had joined, Marc Winters has at last found a refuge from unwanted attention. The wildlife ranger of a small, unremarkable island, he's quietly helping to preserve what survives of nature in a world wracked by climate change and chaotic weather, and trying his best to put his past behind him.
But then his narrowboat is burgled, the counterterrorism police come calling, and everything he thought he knew about the cult and his sister's fate is turned upside down. A cabal of so-called deep dreamers has revived the cult's crazy belief that the world could be healed by collective dreams fuelled by psychotropic mushrooms. They appear to think that Winters possesses information crucial to their success, and when he tries to discover more about them, he becomes inextricably entangled in plans that challenge his very existence.
Blending noir-inflected conspiracies and double-crosses, fantasies of dream science, and elegiac evocations of a depleted world, Loss Protocol's chimerical story keeps its secrets until the last page.
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'Loss Protocol is Paul McAuley on top form' KIM NEWMAN
'An eco-thriller like no other from one of Britain's best SF writers' THE GUARDIAN
'Which one feels realer, truer. The world we lived in most of our lives, or the world we dreamed up?'
Eight years after the catastrophic downfall of the cult his sister Izzy had joined, Marc Winters has at last found a refuge from unwanted attention. The wildlife ranger of a small, unremarkable island, he's quietly helping to preserve what survives of nature in a world wracked by climate change and chaotic weather, and trying his best to put his past behind him.
But then his narrowboat is burgled, the counterterrorism police come calling, and everything he thought he knew about the cult and his sister's fate is turned upside down. A cabal of so-called deep dreamers has revived the cult's crazy belief that the world could be healed by collective dreams fuelled by psychotropic mushrooms. They appear to think that Winters possesses information crucial to their success, and when he tries to discover more about them, he becomes inextricably entangled in plans that challenge his very existence.
Blending noir-inflected conspiracies and double-crosses, fantasies of dream science, and elegiac evocations of a depleted world, Loss Protocol's chimerical story keeps its secrets until the last page.
Press Reviews
- James Bradley, author of LANDFALL
Thrillingly paced, packed with big ideas and deeply, profoundly humane, Loss Protocol is McAuley at his dazzling best
- Jon Courtenay Grimwood, author of ARCTIC SUN
Astonishing, in the quiet way only McAuley manages. A deep dive, through loss of species, places, and cultural coherence into deep myth, and the reclaiming of the public, the personal, and the deeply private
- Peter F. Hamilton, author of EXODUS: THE ARCHIMEDES ENGINE
Paul McAuley's mastery of prose has created a future world of eerie believability. Loss Protocol is a beautiful story of intrigue and mystery featuring characters that resonate with all of us
- Kim Newman, author of MODEL ACTRESS WHATEVER
Loss Protocol is Paul McAuley on absolute top form - a vision of near future England with a gripping thriller/mystery and profound thoughts about our dreams of landscape and possibility
- Locus
Surely some of the best speculative nature writing - which is to say nature writing about an ecosystem that does not exist - yet published
- Adam Roberts, author of LAKE OF DARKNESS
So far this is the best novel I've read this year. Deceptively straightforward in its telling, and in the understated but expert delineation of its climate-change future, it slowly, surely builds a superb waking-dreaming narrative of the magnificent strangeness of existence
- Christopher Brown, author of TROPIC OF KANSAS and A NATURAL HISTORY OF EMPTY LOTS
No one writes more authentic and engaging climate fictions than Paul McAuley - scientifically sharp, wondrously magical and intensely human all at the same time. Set in a vividly realized near future that is also a brilliantly depicted window into deep time, Loss Protocol raises the bar with the story of a world in the process of slowly rewilding, and people not far from us finding the path to renewal
- The Guardian
Beautifully written, blending close attention to the natural world with hallucinogenic dreams and a mind-boggling premise, this is an eco-thriller like no other from one of Britain's best SF writers