'The snow started falling on the sixth of September, soft noiseless flakes filling the sky like a swarm of white moths, or like a static interference on your TV scree - whichever metaphor, nature or technology, you find the more evocative. Snow everywhere, all through the air, with that distinctive sense of hurrying that a vigorous snowfall brings with it. Everything in a rush, busy-busy snowflakes. And, simultaneously, paradoxically, everything is hushed, calm, as quiet as cancer, as white as death. And at the beginning people were happy.'

But the snow doesn't stop. It falls and falls. Until it lies three miles thick across the whole of the earth. Six billion people have dies. Perhaps 150,000 survive.

But those 150,000 need help, they need support, they need organizing, governing. And so the lies begin. Lies about how the snow started. Lies about who is to blame. Lies about who is left. Lies about what really lies beneath.