Lazlo Ratesic is 54, a 19-year veteran of the Speculative Service, from a family of law enforcement and in a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else. This is how Laz must, by law, introduce himself, lest he fail to disclose his true purpose or nature, and by doing so, be guilty of a lie. Laz is a resident of The Golden State, a nation resembling California, where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life, and governance, increasingly impossible. There, surrounded by the high walls of compulsory truth-telling, knowingly contradicting the truth—the Objectively So—is the greatest possible crime. Stopping those crimes, punishing them, is Laz's job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths—to "speculate" on what might have happened in the commission of a crime. But the Golden State is far less a paradise than its name might suggest. To monitor, verify, and enforce the Objectively So requires a veritable panopticon of surveillance, recording, and record-keeping. And when those in control of the truth twist it for nefarious means, the Speculators may be the only ones with the power to fight back.
Author
Ben H. Winters is the author most recently of the novel The Quiet Boy (Mulholland/Little, Brown, 2021). He is also the author of the novel Golden State; the New York Times bestselling Underground Airlines; The Last Policeman and its two sequels; the horror novel Bedbugs; and several works for young readers. His first novel, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, was also a Times bestseller. Ben has won the Edgar Award for mystery writing, the Philip K. Dick award in science fiction, the Sidewise Award for alternate history, and France’s Grand Prix de L’Imaginaire. Ben also writes for film and television. He is the creator and co-showrunner of Tracker, forthcoming on CBS. Previously he was a producer on the FX show Legion, and on the upcoming Apple TV+ drama Manhunt. He has contributed short stories to many anthologies, as well as in magazines such as Lightspeed. He is the author of four “Audible Originals”– Stranger, Inside Jobs, Q&A, and Self Help—and several plays and musicals. His reviews appear frequently in the New York Times Book Review. Ben was born in Washington, D.C., grew up in Maryland, educated in St. Louis, and then grew up a bunch more, in various ways, in places like Chicago, New York, Cambridge, MA, and Indianapolis, IN. These days he lives in LA with his wife, three kids, and one large dog.
