Entire Reality Services collection

Reality is usually reliable.

Usually is doing some work there.

Around the world, small offices of Reality Services handle the cases that do not belong anywhere else: roads that reconsider their destinations, cities that disappear from official maps without physically leaving, forecasts that begin making decisions, animals that become less identifiable the longer experts examine them, and local arrangements that have functioned perfectly well for generations until Headquarters discovers them.

This is government work.

There are procedures.

The procedures were written before the problem occurred and are therefore extremely confident.

Each Reality Services book takes you to a different city, with a different office and a different impossible problem that everyone involved is expected to handle professionally.

Detroit refuses to stay explained. Alice Springs moves. Tromsø discovers what happens when a prediction acquires authority. Hobart receives something in an abalone tub that gradually becomes the least concerning part of Tasmania. Palermo has developed an unofficial system that works so well Headquarters would like to ruin it properly.

And those are some of the better days.

The people of Reality Services are not superheroes. Mostly they are civil servants, inspectors, administrators and unfortunate specialists who showed up for work expecting a normal Tuesday.

Reality had other plans.

They still have to file the report.

Included free: a complete Second Census story. Death is handled by another department, although “handled” is doing considerable work in that sentence.

See all Reality Services books