Second paragraph of third chapter:

Andrew Hilton is more than ninety years old and hasn’t stood at his full height in ten. He was a tower of a man in his prime, two metres tall and built like a boxer. Nearly nobody he ever met was able to look him straight in the eye, at least not and tell him ‘No.’ Illness has gradually eaten away at that over the years. He feels as if he lives at the bottom of a deep bath, with everybody he ever meets looking down at him from slippery, unscalable walls, none of them able to reach down to help him. He’s spent his final months crumpled up in bed like a dying spider, changing to a corpse’s colour ahead of time. It might have been bearable if he’d lost his mind, but he remembers what he used to be: a leader, a powerhouse. He used to be able to alter the course of terrible events for the better, to get justice. He used to protect people.

One of the hotly tipped books this year, a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, this is a great story combining the vibes of A Scanner Darkly and H.P. Lovecraft, and perhaps a nod to the Silents of Matt Smith era Doctor Who, and Charlie Stross’s Laundry. The Antimemetics Division deals with entities which are invading us, taking our memories, our consciousness, our loves and emotions. and leaving nothing. People who have worked at the Division for years turn up and think it is their first day. The protagonist loses all knowledge of her husband. The sense of alienation and loss of trust in reality is tremendously conveyed. You do slightly wonder how the Antimemetics Division itself could withstand the tests of time, given the powerful nature of the opposition. But I enjoyed the ride a lot. You can get There is No Antimemetics Division here.