Benjamin #2

by Ben H. Winters, Leomacs (Artist)

Legendary science-fiction novelist Benjamin J. Carp has just been resurrected 40 years after his death . . . and that’s not even the strangest thing that’s going to happen to him today. In an effort to unravel the mystery of author Benjamin J. Carp’s unexpected reappearance, Benjamin and his newfound companion, Marcus, travel to the arid Joshua Tree desert, where they discover the secret lair of a cabal of scientists eager to revive the minds of some of history’s greatest thinkers in an effort to save humanity from its greatest lack of imagination. Are they to be believed . . . or is this just more sci-fi hokum torn from a chapter in one of Carp’s beloved novels? Edgar Award nominee and Philip K. Dick Award–winning novelist Ben H. Winters (EC’s Cruel Universe, The Last Policeman Trilogy) teams with rising star Leomacs (EC’s Epitaphs from the Abyss, Basketful of Heads) to recite the next haunting chapter of 2025’s mesmerizing science-fiction daydream with profound implications for the fate of the universe, as delivered in a prestige, ad-free format.

Kindle Edition

Published July 16, 2025

About the author

Ben H. Winters is the author most recently of the novel The Quiet Boy (Mulholland/Little, Brown, 2021). He is also the author of the novel Golden State; the New York Times bestselling Underground Airlines; The Last Policeman and its two sequels; the horror novel Bedbugs; and several works for young readers. His first novel, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, was also a Times bestseller. Ben has won the Edgar Award for mystery writing, the Philip K. Dick award in science fiction, the Sidewise Award for alternate history, and France’s Grand Prix de L’Imaginaire.

Ben also writes for film and television. He is the creator and co-showrunner of Tracker, forthcoming on CBS. Previously he was a producer on the FX show Legion, and on the upcoming Apple TV+ drama Manhunt.

He has contributed short stories to many anthologies, as well as in magazines such as Lightspeed. He is the author of four “Audible Originals”– Stranger, Inside Jobs, Q&A, and Self Help — and several plays and musicals. His reviews appear frequently in the New York Times Book Review. Ben was born in Washington, D.C., grew up in Maryland, educated in St. Louis, and then grew up a bunch more, in various ways, in places like Chicago, New York, Cambridge, MA, and Indianapolis, IN. These days he lives in LA with his wife, three kids, and one large dog.