Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody. Where what a person 'feels' and 'truly believes' is protected under the law, while what is rational, even provable, is condemned as heresy. A world where to question ignorance and intolerance is to commit a Crime against Faith.

Imagine it. Or just wait until After The Flood.

On a hot Sagittarian morning in the year 56 ATF, Trafford Sewell struggles to work through the usual crowds of near-naked commuters. He is confronted by the intimidating figure of his Parish Confessor. Why has Trafford not been streaming his every moment of sexual intimacy on to the community website like everybody else? Does he think he's different or special in some way? Better than his fellow man and woman? Does he have something to hide?

Ben Elton's dark, savagely comic novel imagines a post-apocalyptic society where religious intolerance combines with a confessional sex -obsessed, egocentric culture to create a world where nakedness is modesty, ignorance is wisdom and privacy is a dangerous perversion. A chilling vision of what's to come? Or something rather closer to what we call reality?