/ THE QUIET
a novel in three parts
Twenty years after the appearance of an enormous spherical field covering the earth - the Soundfield - Hannah and her son, Isaac, are trying to survive in a world half-destroyed by accelerated climate change and the largest refugee crisis in human history.
At the beginning of the crisis, Hannah led a research team that changed the way the world thought about the Soundfield, but now she needs to protect her child from the thing she created.
‘You have no idea what I’ve had to do to keep him safe…’
Isaac is Hannah’s entire world. She knows that her son is gifted, and that those gifts make him vulnerable. To keep him safe, she spends every waking moment by his side. If she lets her guard down, lets him out of her sight, lets him show what he’s capable of, he will be taken from her.
When the Soundfield arrived twenty years ago, the world changed with it. Now, people are forced to live at night due to the deadly heat of the day, food and water are scarce, and everyday life is punctuated by the constant and disconcerting hum from the Field. A brilliant scientist, Hannah spent her early career working on the enigma of the Soundfield, looking for answers; now, resigned, she has focussed all her energies on keeping Isaac living, not just alive.
To do so, she will have to lie to the people she knows and hope she can trust the ones she doesn't. Because the only thing more dangerous than her lies, is the truth of what she's done.
The Quiet touches on lots of themes – our relationship with our past selves, the evil that can spring from good intentions, the joy and solace of community – but at its core, this is a novel about a parent’s love for their child and the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love most.
Listen to an excerpt ↗ Read an excerpt ↗
+
"A riveting sci-fi story about parenting through an unforeseen apocalypse. Martin weaves an inspired premise into an engrossing and wholly original adventure."
Ernest Cline, No.1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Ready Player One
⸻
The Quiet will be published by Pan Macmillan in Spring 2025. Cover coming soon. See below for pre-order links, and see here ↗ for more ways to purchase the book.
