It was perhaps only a matter of time before Toby Litt went into space. Never one to be constrained by genre or subject – Litt has produced takes on the thriller, chicklit, gothic horror; Beat life, childhood, the music industry – he has consistently demonstrated an interest in the dystopian, from the nightmare world of Hospital to the Goldingesque deadkidsongs to the disquietingly skewed spheres of his short stories. This time around, veering into science fiction, Litt has given himself a treat: one hundred souls imprisoned in a capsule, hurtling off into the unknown.

It is some point in the future, and the inhabitants of UNSS Armenia are on a journey to a faraway planet. The generation that embarked on the voyage has pretty much died off and this lot will be dead well before ‘Completion’. They are the ‘in-betweeners’, glutted on