*Daryl Gregory* # Progressive Summary Love the premise of this novel. The characters are all on a bus tour called Canterbury Trails - an homage to Chaucer. A band of strangers embark on a journey together, their individual stories braided together into a grander arc. Why does this framing device work so well in speculative fiction? Dan Simmons knocked it out of the ballpark when he used it in Hyperion. This novel taps into our contemporary sense of the apocalypse, an unveiling of reality. Life is deeply mysterious, and at any moment, the rug can be pulled out from under our feet. How do we each react to this? The novel is smart, funny, and has characters we care about. # Definitions # Chapter Notes # Quotes # References