Entire Second Census collection

The first census counts the living.

The Second Census handles the paperwork afterward.

This would be considerably easier if the dead would remain where they were entered.

They do not.

Across the world, the Office of the Second Census investigates deaths that have become administratively difficult: a train enters a tunnel with 312 passengers and emerges with 313. Seven hundred and nine death notices arrive signed by the deceased. A dead man makes coffee for two. A corpse lands on the pavement while another version of the same man watches from the window above.

There are rules for these situations.

Some of the rules are extremely old.

Several are currently under appeal.

Each Second Census book follows a different city and a different collision between death, memory, history and the institution charged with keeping the count straight.

In Boston, another office has been counting people the government forgot. In Mexico City, the dead begin accepting their annual invitations home rather more literally than intended. Istanbul discovers that nobody currently administers death. Prague has two versions of the same claimant and neither is willing to concede that the other one has standing.

Belgrade would simply like to know why the extra passenger on the train is already buried.

The Office would also like to know.

It has brought forms.

Included free: a complete Reality Services story, where buildings generally stay in the same reality but management makes no promises.

See all Second Census books