Excerpt from The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"This will sting some," said the black woman in the white lab coat. "In fact, it will be real unpleasant. You'll feel like a pint of cold yogurt is traveling up your veins."

"Gee, thanks. I can hardly wait." He settled his head uneasily in the padded polystyrene hollow of his coffin-like crib and tried not to look at the spike that was approaching his tourniquetted arm.

"We wouldn't want you to think there was anything wrong, that's all." "If I die, please tell my—"

"You won't die. Not with this stuff inside you. Just relax and think nice thoughts."

The cannula was in his vein; the IV drip was activated; the translucent substance moved into him. He thought he might vomit from the sheer ghastliness of it. They ought to have given him a sedative or something. He wondered if his three fellow travelers were braver than him. They were nestled in identical cribs, elsewhere in the building, but he couldn't see them. He would meet them in a month from now, when he woke up.

The woman who had administered the infusion stood calmly watching over him. Without warning—but how could there be any warning?—her lipsticked mouth started to drift to the left of her face, the lips traveling across the flesh of her cheek like a tiny red canoe. The mou

Excerpted from The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber. Copyright © 2014 by Michel Faber. Excerpted by permission of Hogarth Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.