Pre-release: Expected April 1, 2025
0 of 2 copies available
JP and Dulin have been the best of friends for decades. When JP finds out his cancer has aggressively returned, Dulin decides it's the perfect time for one last adventure: a week-long bus tour of North America's Impossibles, the physics-defying glitches and geographic miracles that started cropping up seven years earlier—right after the Announcement that revealed our world to be merely a digital simulacrum. The outing, courtesy of Canterbury Trails Tours, promises the trip of a (not completely real) lifetime in a (not completely deluxe) coach.
Their fellow passengers are 21st-century pilgrims, each of them on the tour for their own reasons. There's a nun hunting for an absent God, a pregnant influencer determined to make her child too famous to be deleted, a crew of horny octogenarians living each day like it's their last, and a professor on the run from leather-clad sociopaths who take The Matrix as scripture. Each stop on this trip is stranger than the last—a Tunnel outside of time, a zero gravity Geyser, the compound of motivational-speaking avatar—with everyone barreling toward the tour's iconic final stop Ghost City, where unbeknownst to our travelers the answer to who is running the simulation may await.
When We Were Real is a tour-de-force and exploration of what really matters, even in an artificial world.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 1, 2025 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781668060063
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781668060063
- File size: 6473 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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March 1, 2025
The tour of Impossibles promises to be the trip of a lifetime. It's a one-week bus tour of anomalies that popped up across North America soon after everyone learned that they are living in a computer simulation. Lifelong best friends Dulin and JP are joined on this trip by a cast of characters almost as unbelievable, including an influencer trying to make her unborn baby famous, a podcaster who is "just asking questions," two nuns and a rabbi searching for God, and a college professor on the run from the government and an armed gang of vigilantes. Together with their woefully inept tour guide, the group bumbles across the country, visiting frozen tornadoes, anti-gravity geysers, a flock of sheep made of clouds, and more. While they visit these Impossibles--designed to prove that they are all living in a simulation--each traveler goes on a personal journey, learning what it means to be truly alive. VERDICT This hilarious and heartfelt read that tackles big ideas will be popular with book clubs. Recommend Gregory's (Revelator) latest to fans of How To Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley and The Big Door Prize by M.O. Walsh.--Portia Kapraun
Copyright 2025 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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March 1, 2025
Life on Earth changed drastically when the Simulators announced that it was all just a digital simulation. In fact, every week, humans rise from sleep to see the words "You are living in a simulation" appear before them in various fonts and colors. When We Were Real invites readers to join a tour of North American Impossibles, phenomena that illustrate that the laws of physics don't apply except at the whim of the Simulators. Among the passengers is a very pregnant vodcast Influencer who wishes to have her baby blessed by the Avatar Saugut Zin. A Professor joins the tour partway through with the help of the Comic Book Writer and the Engineer. The Professor is running away from violent conspiracists who believe she is a bot in cooperation with the Simulators and from government agents who want her to find a backdoor into The Simulation. A dozen other fellow travelers learn to lean on each other as the marvels of the Impossibles strain their sense of reality to its fullest. It's a five-star adventure by an author at the peak of his craft.COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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