The Absentee - Paperback

by Rob McKenzie (Author)

A young man wakes up in a college dormitory with no idea who he is, where he is or how he got there. Soon he discovers a secret within himself that marks him as an outcast and places him in danger. He tries to solve the riddle of his nature - and whether it means he has a special purpose for good or ill. After the loss of the one person he loves, cryptic clues steer him toward a quest to the ends of the Earth, from Peru to Kyrgyzstan to Tasmania. A time is coming when he will be called on to summon what courage he has for the sake of the humans.

Inspirations: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi and Definitely Maybe by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

Tone: Darkly humorous outsider fiction.

Ideal for whom? Introverts. The hero is not by nature a man of action - his fate was thrust upon him. He is insular, observant and barely social. He feels the pull of the humans yet flees them as a mortal peril.