Exegesis: A New Science Fiction Novel by Michael Kilman | Summer 2026

What if you didn’t know why the world ended?

Seventeen years ago, the entities now known as Ribbons appeared in the sky without warning. The world’s militaries panicked, but every weapon fired at them simply vanished. The next day they descended, and within a week 99.9% of humanity was gone. No explanation. No communication. No reason given.

To this forced removal of humanity, the Ribbons offered only silence, drifting and swirling in the atmosphere above, dimming the sunlight and reshaping the climate of a planet that no longer belonged to its people.

The survivors rebuilt quietly, because loud noises wake the Ribbons. No guns. No bombs. No combustion engines. Just quiet analog lives in the ruins of a world they no longer understand.

Nyx and Solana are scavengers, the best their enclave has. They have built their lives in the shadow of a loss they have never fully processed. Their parents were taken when they were children, and the guilt of that has followed Nyx ever since. But after a collision with raiders, a pride of lions, and a Ribbon attack they barely survive, Nyx discovers something that might finally explain what the Ribbons are and what they want.

Unfortunately, it might already be too late.

Coming Summer 2026!

About the Author

Michael Kilman is an applied anthropologist, TEDx speaker, and the author of the Chronicles of the Great Migration series, the Shades and Shapes dark fantasy series, and the worldbuilding textbook Build Better Worlds. His work explores power, identity, and what it means to be human in worlds that are anything but ordinary.