<DIV>Set in an airport cocktail lounge during five hours of a global disaster, Coupland's latest work asks readers: At what point do humans stop being human and become something else? Where, if anywhere, do modernity and classical theology overlap? What is time? What is the human essence? And how does storytelling fit into all of this? In the tradition of Vonnegut and J. G.? Ballard, Coupland locates his story and characters in an extreme situation and then pushes the implications as far as possible. Are we ants or are we divine? And where can we now locate meaning? The book asks as many questions as it answers, and readers will leave the book with no doubt that we are in a new phase of existence as a species &#151; and that there is no turning back.</DIV>