Description

In late-twenty-first-century Australia, Tao-Yi and her partner Navin spend most of their time inside an immersive, consumerist virtual reality called Gaia. They log on, go to work, socialise and even eat in this digital utopia. Meanwhile, their aging bodies lie suspended in pods inside cramped apartments.

Across the city, in the abandoned real world, Tao-Yi’s mother remains stubbornly offline, dwindling away between hospital visits and memories of her earlier life in Malaysia.

When a new technology is developed to permanently upload a human brain to Gaia, Tao-Yi must decide what is most important: a digital future or an authentic past.

Publisher Review

Draw two timelines: the relentless degradation of the planet along one; a seamless interface with utopian digital space along the other. This disturbing, unflinching and emotionally-charged story explores the point of convergence * DAILY MAIL * Quietly brilliant... a clever and thoughtful novel that sprawls out of its tightly observed, intimate beginnings into a big-picture look at humanity's future * NEW SCIENTIST * Strange and terrifying, Every Version of You warns of the devastating toll of climate change, AI and depression. And perhaps most importantly, it urges readers to consider what makes us human, like the tender love between partners or the unbreakable bond between mother and daughter. A must-read for fans of sf and dystopia * BOOKLIST * It's like Ready Player One meets Station Eleven and Ex Machina, and it's the book I can't stop thinking about this year * TIME OUT * Confronting what might one day be left on a ruined, 'offline' Earth is a powerful way to refocus the lens on the world we are presently creating, and the politics informing what we build - whether it's from bricks or code * GUARDIAN *