The System could contain the seeds of a new civilisation, but its inhabitants are dying from an unknown disease. The Orphan is given a mission from her dying master to go deep into the underground remains of the old world, known as ‘the Glows’ to find out what is making people sick. Complicating matters considerably, a simmering conflict between two of the System’s alpha males threatens to tear the settlement apart.

Year of the Orphan is written entirely in the blunt pidgin English of its future inhabitants. This allows Findlay to achieve some wonderful effects and turns of phrase, but it leaves the reader with a sparse, bare-bones narrative that is often disorienting, occasionally confusing, and leaves much unexplained. Still, it is a bleak, strangely affecting story, shot through with a sense of impermanence and loss, and made more poignant by the inability of the characters to articulate the exact nature of the absence they are grieving.