A lyrical, apocalyptic debut novel about addiction, friendship, and the struggle for survival at the height of an epidemic.
The sickness started with a single child and quickly spread: you could get high by drinking your own shadow. Artificial lights were destroyed so addicts could sip shadow at night in the pure moonlight. Gangs of shadow addicts chased down children on playgrounds, rounded up old ladies from retirement homes. Cities were destroyed and governments fell. And if your shadow was sipped entirely, you became one of them, had to drink the shadows of others or go mad.
One hundred and fifty years later, what’s left of the world is divided between the highly regimented life of those inside dome cities who are protected from natural light (and natural shadows), and those forced to the dangerous, hardscrabble life in the wilds outside. In rural Texas, Mira, her shadow-addicted-friend Murk, and an ex-domer named Bale search for a possible mythological cure to the shadow sickness—but they must find it, it is said, before the return of Halley’s Comet, which is only days away.
Genre: Science Fiction
The sickness started with a single child and quickly spread: you could get high by drinking your own shadow. Artificial lights were destroyed so addicts could sip shadow at night in the pure moonlight. Gangs of shadow addicts chased down children on playgrounds, rounded up old ladies from retirement homes. Cities were destroyed and governments fell. And if your shadow was sipped entirely, you became one of them, had to drink the shadows of others or go mad.
One hundred and fifty years later, what’s left of the world is divided between the highly regimented life of those inside dome cities who are protected from natural light (and natural shadows), and those forced to the dangerous, hardscrabble life in the wilds outside. In rural Texas, Mira, her shadow-addicted-friend Murk, and an ex-domer named Bale search for a possible mythological cure to the shadow sickness—but they must find it, it is said, before the return of Halley’s Comet, which is only days away.
Genre: Science Fiction
Praise for this book
"Sip reads like what might happen if Cormac McCarthy dropped acid and then hallucinated a science fiction novel. Half post-apocalyptic disaster, half weird Western, Sip's a blood-slick trip that's nonetheless humane at its core." - Brian Evenson
"In Sip, Brian Allen Carr beautifully cultivates the classic motif of the loss of the shadow to underline, disguised as a speculation about the future, the nightmarish features of our dystopian present." - Yuri Herrera
"An utterly transporting voyage through an oddly sweet, surprisingly funny, and horribly human post-apocalyptic wasteland. As much a celebration of the wonders of our daily existence as it is an indictment of the hungers which bring us low, Brian Allen Carr's Sip inflated my shadow-soaked head and set me floating on strange and beautiful winds. Never before have I so deeply wanted to return to the end of the world." - Jeremy Robert Johnson
"If this book was a movie I’d go see it again tomorrow; if it was a TV show I’d buy a TV. Brian Allen Carr writes like lightning on the horizon and I’d drink his shadow if I could." - Ben Loory
"Brian Allen Carr has written a great novel, and Sip will remain engraved in the reader's memory for quite some time." - Alain Mabanckou
"For a novel about domed worlds devoid of light, Sip has no shortage of luminosity. The precision of the images in this novel illuminate every scene like the water around a lighthouse. A fable about shadow addicts and sealed-over inaccessible domes feels eerily prescient for the increasing volatile divide in the United States." - Idra Novey
"It's a post-apocalyptic wasteland and are you on team Dome, team Shadowless Army, team Doc, or team shadow-sipping junkies? I know which team I'm on. Brian Allen Carr's Sip is funny, literate, crass, dark, violent, lyrical, oddly touching, and totally bat-shit crazy. I loved it." - Paul Tremblay
"In Sip, Brian Allen Carr beautifully cultivates the classic motif of the loss of the shadow to underline, disguised as a speculation about the future, the nightmarish features of our dystopian present." - Yuri Herrera
"An utterly transporting voyage through an oddly sweet, surprisingly funny, and horribly human post-apocalyptic wasteland. As much a celebration of the wonders of our daily existence as it is an indictment of the hungers which bring us low, Brian Allen Carr's Sip inflated my shadow-soaked head and set me floating on strange and beautiful winds. Never before have I so deeply wanted to return to the end of the world." - Jeremy Robert Johnson
"If this book was a movie I’d go see it again tomorrow; if it was a TV show I’d buy a TV. Brian Allen Carr writes like lightning on the horizon and I’d drink his shadow if I could." - Ben Loory
"Brian Allen Carr has written a great novel, and Sip will remain engraved in the reader's memory for quite some time." - Alain Mabanckou
"For a novel about domed worlds devoid of light, Sip has no shortage of luminosity. The precision of the images in this novel illuminate every scene like the water around a lighthouse. A fable about shadow addicts and sealed-over inaccessible domes feels eerily prescient for the increasing volatile divide in the United States." - Idra Novey
"It's a post-apocalyptic wasteland and are you on team Dome, team Shadowless Army, team Doc, or team shadow-sipping junkies? I know which team I'm on. Brian Allen Carr's Sip is funny, literate, crass, dark, violent, lyrical, oddly touching, and totally bat-shit crazy. I loved it." - Paul Tremblay
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