Bannerless: A Novel

In this Philip K. Dick Award–winning, post-apocalyptic mystery, murder leads a novice investigator to question her population-controlled society.

Decades after economic and environmental collapse destroys much of civilization in the United States, the Coast Road region isn’t just surviving but thriving by some accounts, building something new on the ruins of what came before. A culture of population control has developed in which people, organized into households, must earn the children they bear by proving they can take care of them and are awarded symbolic banners to demonstrate this privilege. In the meantime, birth control is mandatory.

Enid of Haven is an Investigator, called on to mediate disputes and examine transgressions against the community. She’s young for the job and hasn't yet handled a serious case. Now, though, a suspicious death requires her attention. The victim was an outcast, but might someone have taken dislike a step further and murdered him?

In a world defined by the disasters that happened a century before, the past is always present. But this investigation may reveal the cracks in Enid’s world and make her question what she really stands for.

Praise for Bannerless

“Bannerless is both a fine murder mystery and a multi-layered look at a different kind of society.” —Analog Science Fiction & Fact

“Vaughn skillfully portrays a vastly altered future America that’s almost unrecognizable decades after its total collapse; the . . . focus on sustainability and responsibility is unusual, thought-provoking, and very welcome.” —Publishers Weekly

“[A]n intimate post-apocalyptic mystery. . . . a deft portrait of a society departed so completely from the complexities of the now-destroyed civilization . . . that survivors don’t even understand what it is they’ve lost. . . . [A] well-crafted and heartfelt effort.” —Kirkus

“Amazing and compelling, Vaughn brings her deft characterization and humanity to bear on a post-apocalyptic world that is all too real.” —Tobias S. Buckell, bestselling author of Arctic Rising

© 2023 Harper Voyager (Ebook): 9780544947634

Release date

Ebook: 18 August 2023