Before: In Bristol’s center lies the Croft, a digital no-man’s-land cut off from the constant surveillance, big data, and corporate hegemony that have overrun the rest of the world. Ten years in, it’s become a center of creative counterculture. But it’s fraying at the edges, radicalizing from inside. How will it fare when its chief architect, Rushdi Mannan, takes off to meet his boyfriend in New York City―now the apotheosis of the new techno-utopian global metropolis? After: An act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the Internet. Global trade, travel, and communication have collapsed. Luxuries that characterized modern life are scarce. The community of the Croft still exists, but it is now more black market and urban farm than creative commune. Everyone has a hustle now, and everyone has a sense of loss. But are they just struggling to stay alive—or are they building something new? The world of Infinite Detail is a step shy of our own: utterly dependent on technology, constantly brokering autonomy and privacy for comfort and convenience. With Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan makes the hitherto unimaginable come true: the end of the Internet, the end of the world as we know it.

Three short stories set in the near-future dystopia of Infinite Detail, The Guardian's Pick for Best Science Fiction Book of 2019. After an act of anonymous cyberterrorism has permanently switched off the internet, causing global trade, travel, and communication to collapse and modern luxuries to become scarce, life in the Croft and beyond... carries on. In “Ghost Hardware,” we meet Anika, an artist who uses VR to uncover layers of street art in pursuit of the work of another elusive artist. In a desolate future, she is chasing the past. “Limited Edition” takes us to a time before the crash to introduce us to Grids, College, and Melody - a tight-knit, sneaker-obsessed South Bristol crew. When a new pair of limited-edition trainers drops, they won't let a little thing like being broke get in their way - even if they have to do some VR hacking to pull off an IRL heist. And in the pre-internet-crash world of “Gulls” we meet Mary, who lives in the Tip, where Gulls like her dig through landfills in search of treasure. But Mary wants out. And the strange, glowing pair of glasses she found in a dead man’s jacket pocket just might be her ticket. Expanding on Tim Maughan’s vision of a world disconnected in Infinite Detail, the stories in Ghost Hardware give a closer look at the End of the Internet, the End of the World as We Know It.