The Book - Extract 1

This is one of three very short extracts from Station 23 to give you a flavour of the novel.

It is translated by Justine Meredith, chosen by Secret City Salon Ltd and Louis V. to translate the whole of Station 23 into English.

PART 1, CHAPTER 13, PAGES 63–64

All this unfolded in a habitat governed by its own rules, which were entirely devoid of logic, and where even the white rabbit himself was one of the least strange parts. The average inhabitant of this habitat lived in their own, highly confined world, making communication between them a laborious task and chaos the inevitable outcome. Add to that a queen who would gladly rob many a person of his or her head and one begins to grasp the sheer absurdity in which Leonard was deemed to spend eternity. At yet another beginning of the cycle Leonard had come to recognise, he saw, to his horror, his body suddenly running ahead of him, as if it had abandoned the mind, vanishing independently into the dark hole. The girl followed soon after, apparently unaware of him and entirely according to Protocol, disappearing into the hole as well. For a long while, he stood trembling at the spot where the separation had occurred, staring, dumbfounded, straight ahead. Yet, as he became increasingly aware of his new body, the body that had just left his own yet different body, Leonard, for he had known from the very beginning that this was his name, could draw no other conclusion but that this regeneration was an improvement. After all, he still possessed a body: a perfect copy of the original, which already felt stronger, and he was, in contrast to that other body, free to come and go as he pleased.

Below is an  AI visualisation of the content of  Station 23