men-killing viruses NEON NUNS & A SADISTIC SISTER

Comic-book writer, documentarian, screenwriter and author Lauren Beukes is probably best known for her critically acclaimed international bestsellers Broken Monsters and The Shining Girls. Both these novels took readers into the mind of a serial killer, with a good dose of the fantastical. But for her new book, Afterland, she took a break from the whole murder thing. ‘You know what? I was tired of death, so I just decided to kill 3,5 billion people instead,’ she says with a laugh.

Described as a high-concept feminist dystopian thriller, imagines a world where 99% of the male population has been wiped out by a virus. Cole and her son, Miles, who is disguised as a young girl, are on the run across a very changed America, trying to find their way back home to South Africa. The nefarious parties after them include the Department of Men and the neon nuns of the Church of All Sorrows.