From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Hours" comes a novel centered on time, technology, and love, similar to David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas." In "Specimen Days," three characters—Lucas, Catherine, and Simon—recurre in three interconnected stories. The first story, a science fiction of the past, tells of a boy whose brother is "devoured" by the machine he operated. The second is a noirish thriller set in our century, in which a police psychologist tries to track down a group of terrorists. The third and final story follows two strange beings into the future. This novel of connection and reconnection, inspired by the writings of the great visionary poet Walt Whitman, is a genre-bending, compelling ode to life itself—a work of unsurpassed power and beauty by one of today's most original and daring writers.