A comic sci-fi novel about cosmic bureaucracy, runaway paperwork, and the quiet heroism of making tea when the universe is falling apart.
Dean Hollister wakes up on an ordinary Monday to find a glowing blue sphere pulsing gently on his kitchen table. Before he can finish his tea, the universe informs him, rather rudely, that he is now required to participate in an interdimensional apology. His accidental brush with cosmic forces has caused an existential disturbance, and the Department of Existence Reconciliation would like a word.
The Department is not a spiritual plane or an enlightened realm. It is an infinite office resembling a council office, complete with squeaking linoleum, exhausted fluorescent lights, and filing cabinets tall enough to develop their own microclimates. Here, every quirk of reality is logged, categorised, assessed, misplaced, rediscovered, and occasionally apologised for.
Dean is paired with an unlikely trio:
• Nora, Dean’s flatmate, a human whose mysterious aura can stabilise spacetime but cannot, apparently, stabilise her patience.
• Jillex, a probability engineer who bottles coincidences on shelves organised by statistical charm.
• Korl, an administrator so dedicated to procedure that his job title requires several annexes and a warning label.
Together, they must navigate department after department as the universe threatens to buckle under decades of unresolved metaphysical paperwork.
Their biggest problem?
A small, beige, perfectly punched memo from the planet Frinton, a civilisation so snobbishly refined that it considers etiquette a survival trait. The memo was misfiled, misread, worshipped, ignored, rediscovered, sanctified, emotionally mismanaged, and now it has begun rewriting itself (and bits of reality) with the confidence of a deity who prefers bullet points.
As the team pursues the escaped memo through the Department’s labyrinth of temporal archives, improbable corridors, and narrative leaks, they encounter:
- duplicate Tuesdays
- rogue footnotes seeking union recognition
- vending machines on emotional sabbatical
- a sacred Frintonian constitution written entirely by accident
- and a universe quietly begging someone to tidy up after it
Meanwhile, beyond the edge of the page, the author himself, Jon (Not that one),finds that the manuscript is developing it’s own opinions. Chapters rearrange themselves. Appendices generate without permission. A subplot wanders off. Even the cursor begins offering editorial feedback. Soon, the author and the story enter an increasingly unbalanced negotiation over who exactly is telling the tale.
At its heart, The Interdimensional Apology Initiative is a humorous, heartfelt exploration of responsibility, bureaucracy, and the strange tenderness hidden in the word “sorry.”
It blends British absurdism with cosmic satire to ask:
What if apologies are the bolts that keep the universe together?
And what happens when one of those bolts falls out?
Tea helps. Obviously.
As the characters clash with cosmic systems, officious memos, and the expectations of narrative itself, the universe learns, slowly and with paperwork, that it cannot simply run on rules. It needs connection.
It needs forgiveness.
And it needs someone, somewhere, to put the kettle on.
Since you’re here, you might like to check in on Chapter Twelve, which escaped the book after feeling under appreciated, and has settled here with a view to taking up permanent residence.
Please pay Chapter Twelve a visit, it’s not in the book, so here is the only place you will find it, and I think it’s quite lonely.
If you think I’ve lost the plot, then you aren’t alone, it doesn’t help that chapters are going rogue.
Please read the book and draw your own conclusions.