All Fools' Day

The summer of 1971 was unusually sunny for London. It was also scientifically fascinating: Sunspots emitting a new type of solar radiation suddenly appeared. Then, unaccountably, there began a sharp rise in the suicide rate, and over the next ten years, the radiation-triggered impulse to self-destruction gradually eliminated all but the Transnormals---creative artists, eccentrics, psychopaths---those who had always lived on the fringe of organized society. These survivors now found themselves in a depopulated world where civilization had dissolved and man had reverted to savagery...