The Brief History of the Dead

by Kevin Brockmeier

I guess you could call this speculative fiction. Alternating chapters relate the fates of the dead, "living" in an unnamed city for as long as they are remembered by someone alive on earth, and the doom of all as the last living human slowly perishes in the thawing but still cold enough to be deadly Antarctic.

It's a bonbon of a book, entertaining and brief, without a lot of depth. There's sort of a side plot involving mega-corporations run amok as governments crumble, but it isn't developed enough to be integral to the story; it isn't thought-provoking either, because we all already know corporations are evil and lame, right?