-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A transgender salvager on the outskirts of a dystopian Utah gets the chance to earn the ultimate score and maybe even a dash of romance. But there's no such thing as a free lunch…
Valentine Weis is a salvager in the future wastelands of Utah. Wrestling with body dysphoria, he dreams of earning enough money to afford citizenship in Salt Lake City – a utopia where the testosterone and surgery he needs to transition is free, the food is plentiful, and folk are much less likely to be shot full of arrows by salt pirates. But earning that kind of money is a pipe dream, until he meets the exceptionally handsome Osric.
Once a powerful AI in Salt Lake City, Osric has been forced into an android body against his will and sent into the wasteland to offer Valentine a job on behalf of his new employer – an escort service seeking to retrieve their stolen androids. The reward is a visa into the city, and a chance at the life Valentine's always dreamed of. But as they attempt to recover the "merchandise", they encounter a problem: the android ladies are becoming self-aware, and have no interest in returning to their old lives.
The prize is tempting, but carrying out the job would go against everything Valentine stands for, and would threaten the fragile found family that's kept him alive so far. He'll need to decide whether to risk his own dream in order to give the AI a chance to live theirs.
"Spunky, scrappy, and earnest, the heroes—both human and AI—of Hess's wildly entertaining latest make pitch-perfect guides through a dystopian near-future… Hess uses android bodies to offer additional insight into the trans experience, focusing on issues of autonomy and self-discovery… Fans of speculative fiction and inventive queer stories will delight in this playful and lovingly crafted romp." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Engaging prose and compelling dialogue make this novel an easy read that will appeal to teen and adult readers who enjoy sci-fi that addresses social justice issues." - Library Journal
"A piercing mix of relevant social commentary braided into a riveting scifi adventure." – Sunyi Dean, author of The Book Eaters
"Hess's debut makes me glad I'm a reader because I couldn't have gotten this story any other way. Books, like Hess's characters, still dare to love." – R.W.W. Greene, author of Twenty-Five to Life
"Hess's story asks big questions about selfhood, identity and consciousness with sweetness and verve and a big dollop of queer love. A rousing and touching read."
– Khan Wong, author of The Circus Infinite
This information about World Running Down was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Al Hess is author of World Running Down and the self-published Hep Cats of Boise series. Semi-finalist in the SPSFC with Mazarin Blues. When not hunched before a computer screen, Al can be found at his art desk. He does portraits in both pencil and oil paint, and loves drawing fellow authors' characters nearly as much as his own. He writes cozy and uplifting stories with queer, trans, and neurodiverse representation. Al is represented by agent Ren Balcombe at Janklow & Nesbit.
If you liked World Running Down, try these:
by Laila Lalami
Published 2026
READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY ● From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a "maestra of literary fiction" (NPR)—comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman's fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.
by Brittany Newell
Published 2026
A young woman's madcap search for her missing ex-boyfriend takes her into the sexual underground in Brittany Newell's savage, tender Soft Core.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
by Gabrielle Zevin
Published 2024
In this exhilarating novel by the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry two friends - often in love, but never lovers - come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
