“After the Fall”

c.2026, St. Martin’s Press, $29.00, 279 pages

Sit. Sit. Sit.

There are days when you can give your dog a command a hundred times, and he’ll act like you’re speaking foreign words. Come, down, off, speak. He’s got his own mind and sometimes it’s made up contrary to yours. Still, you love him and, as in the new novel, “After the Fall” by Edward Ashton, you can’t imagine life without him.

When Martok told John that he had exciting news, John was concerned.

For 12 years, ever since Mortok adopted him from the crèche, John did his best to make wherever they were a home. John was a good bondsman; at the crèche, he’d learned to do all the things that bondsmen do for grays. To sit quietly, cook, clean, and be silent Especially to be silent. Not that Martok ever mistreated John, but all grays had that right.

No, Martok was never anything but kind — except when he underestimated what it took to keep John warm and comfortable, but that wasn’t his fault. Considering where they came from after The Fall, after humans all but disappeared, grays were accustomed to ignoring things that didn’t directly affect them.

Even with Martok’s forward-thinking manner, though, his news shocked John.

Martok had made a deal for a large estate just outside Farhome, one that he intended to make a vacation destination for grays. Grays didn’t understand vacations or luxury, but Martok was about to show them.

He had 60 days to pay for the property or he lost his collateral.

His collateral was John. This was a very bad thing, but John had nothing to say about it. Martok Barden nee Black Hand was his gray, his patron, his owner. He couldn’t contradict Martok about the estate or his intentions or the fact that Martok adopted another bondsman. With her along, there was another mouth to feed, but John couldn’t say that.

Nor could he admit to talking to thieving grays and spinning a protective story, which could have gotten him killed but what was the alternative? Were there worse sins of omission?

Sit. Part dystopian, part allegory, part science fiction, “After the Fall” is pure enjoyment, the kind of novel that makes you look at your pet and the news in a whole different way.

If you’ve ever wondered what your dog really thinks of you, step into author Edward Ashton’s world and meet John, a reduced-sized being whose life is all shadows. Readers will have a lot of imagining to do and blanks to fill about him, which makes him a very tantalizing presence. Add to that, the second bondsman and a benevolent “gray” with a secret all his own, and you won’t be able to put this book aside for long. Reading it, in fact, will make your mind whirl with what-if-what-if-what-if for days after you reluctantly close the back cover.

How can you resist a fantastical book that makes you laugh and gasp and tense, all in the same chapter? You can’t — that’s how, so find “After the Fall.”

And sit.

— The Bookworm Sez