I’m saying all of that was never real in the first place. It is not that you will cease to exist, Marcus, it is that you never really existed in the first place. That life was always an illusion. Your dreams were always temporary. Your memories were always an invention. But you know, let’s be honest, that’s how it is for most people, when you get right down to it. You think you have this future. You think you have this past. But everything is always going away. Everything is always in the process of coming to nothing. But what I’m telling you, Marcus, is that I am different. For some cosmic reasons impossible to understand, I matter. I have a chance to save the universe . . . and you have a chance to save me. That is more—so much more—than most people ever get.” —Benjamin J. Carp, novelist (Deceased. Robot? Ghost? Alien?) From Philip K. Award–winning writer Ben H. Winters (EC’s Cruel Universe) and extraordinary artist Leomacs (Basketful of Heads), the prestige-format examination of a dead science-fiction icon’s unexpected return to Earth concludes with a mind-bending meditation of existence itself.