The Essence

by Dave Hutchinson

There is a phenomenon – a force, a spirit, a flaw in Reality – known as the Essence, which can manifest at random, often with dire effect.

Michael Brookes, an economist working for a small outstation of MI6 attached to the Treasury, is sent to the Netherlands by his department, where he narrowly escapes being kidnapped; and that’s just the start of his problems. Michael has never heard of the Essence, but some very powerful people believe otherwise. Despite his protestations, they will stop at nothing to discover what he knows.

The problem is that Michael, who is recovering from a catastrophic breakdown, has large gaps in his memory... So he can’t rule out the possibility that they might be right.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Espionage

344 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 9, 2025

About the author

UK writer who published four volumes of stories by the age of twenty-one – Thumbprints, which is mostly fantasy, Fools' Gold, Torn Air and The Paradise Equation, all as David Hutchinson – and then moved into journalism. The deftness and quiet humaneness of his work was better than precocious, though the deracinatedness of the worlds depicted in the later stories may have derived in part from the author's apparent isolation from normal publishing channels.

After a decade of nonfiction, Hutchinson returned to the field as Dave Hutchinson, assembling later work in As the Crow Flies; tales like "The Pavement Artist" use sf devices to represent, far more fully than in his early work, a sense of the world as inherently and tragically not a platform for Transcendence. His first novel, The Villages, is Fantasy; The Push, an sf tale set in the Human Space sector of the home galaxy, describes the inception of Faster Than Light travel and some consequent complications when expanding humanity settles on a planet full of Alien life. Europe in Autumn (2014), an sf thriller involving espionage, takes place in a highly fragmented and still fragmenting Near-Future Europe, one of whose sovereign mini-nations is a transcontinental railway line; over the course of the central plot – which seems to reflect some aspects of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 – the protagonist becomes involved in the Paranoia-inducing Les Coureurs des Bois, a mysterious postal service which also delivers humans across innumerable borders.

- See more at: http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/hutc...

Works
* The Villages (Holicong, Pennsylvania: Cosmos Books, 2001)
* Europe in Autumn (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Rebellion/Solaris, 2014)

Collections and Stories
* Thumbprints (London: Abelard, 1978)
* Fools' Gold (London: Abelard, 1978)
* Torn Air (London: Abelard, 1980)
* The Paradise Equation (London: Abelard, 1981)
* As the Crow Flies (Wigan, Lancashire: BeWrite Books, 2004)
* The Push (Alconbury Weston, Cambridgeshire: NewCon Press, 2009)

Reviews

[Dominic Audy]

Dave Hutchinson returns with another espionage/science-fiction hybrid, a genre he mastered with his excellent Fractured Europe series.

The Essence is a simpler more focused thriller with nonetheless a very recognizable vibe that resonated very positively with this enthusiastic reader of the Coureurs stories.

The plot is best left as vague as possible. I wouldn't advise even reading the blurb: go into it blind. One of the pleasures of reading Hutchinson is his great ability at throwing us at the deep end of the pool and let us keep our head above the water, like his character(s). Everything appears deceptively straightforward at first, but soon become intriguing, and then a bit baffling and finally it all starts to make sense.

Suffice to say this story is not near future like Fractured Europe but contemporary, and opens as the protagonist Michael is in some kind of mental institution. Who is he? What is he doing there and why? That's just the start of many questions arising as a lot of things happens to Michael, with answers playing hide and seek, both for the very relatable character himself and for the reader.

Fast paced, suspenseful and captivating without relying on action gimmicks, The Essence is also clever and timely, with its exploration of our perception of reality, our propension to spot patterns and to assemble them to create meaning where maybe there's only chaos too frightening to accept.

I'm really at heart a "journey before destination" reader, and this journey was great, but I need to point out how great the finale of this novel is. Again it's a case of the least revealed the better, but it's a really clever, fun and unexpected ending.

[Tomasz]

And now I'm a confirmed Hutchinsonhead. Took me a while to get into this one, but when it clicked, it roared, and it blew me away. There's everything here that I love, the numinous is very much so, the action kicks out the jams, I absolutely wub Archie the Very Energetic Dog, and even if I only imagined the jokey nod to Karate po polsku, that was still a very satisfying scene (the last one with Claes, that is).

[Samuel]

A solid 4 stars. Hutchinson’s prose is refreshingly clean and effortless. The story moves quickly without ever feeling thin, and there’s a subtle confidence in how much it leaves unsaid. A quietly effective slipstream novel that read a bit like a spy novel. In terms of the storytelling, it occasionally reminded me of Christopher Priest, which is always a good thing in my book. As someone living in the Netherlands, I also enjoyed seeing it used as a setting—it’s unusual for British SF and adds a slightly off-kilter charm. A smart, very readable book that doesn’t overreach.

[Mike Dean]

4.5⭐️

[Fastnbulbous]

British writer Hutchinson established himself as a talented writer with his Europe series in 2014-18, a hybrid SF/spy thriller. His brand new book, just published on Dec 9, is bracingly original, with the closest comparison I can think of being Christopher Priest's The Glamour (1984) which I read earlier this year. Like that book, our hero Michael Brookes is in a hospital with a large gap in his memory. He's an economist working for MI6, and though he's unsure he's fully recovered, let along restored his memory, they give him a sensitive assignment to the Netherlands. There, it turns out multiple groups from France, Denmark and the United States very badly want to kidnap him and extract information about a phenomenon referred to as the Essence -- seemingly supernatural events that have occurred throughout history, but are becoming documented more frequently as more people have access to cameras. He has no idea how they found him, or why they want him, which suggests that someone know more about himself than he does. The book ends up with more metaphysical and philosophical questions than answers, along the lines of Philip K. Dick. It definitely has me eager to check out his previous work to see if I might have a new favorite author.

[John Rennie]

This is a great book. Dave Hutchinson's books are always full of good ideas and this one is no exception. It has great characters, the story is skilfully written and it has that characteristically British dry humour that I love.

So why only four stars? The book is a bit slow moving. By two thirds of the way through I found I had started skipping paragraphs after reading the first sentence and realising the paragraph didn't contain anything of consequence. I have a pretty high tolerance for slowly developing stories, but I suspect the more action oriented readers will find this a problem.

I still recommend the book. Hutchinson has a rare talent for writing stories set in an apparently normal world with apparently normal characters but with a deep weirdness at the heart.

[Alice]

My first book of 2026 and likely to be one of my favourites. I loved the Fractured Europe series and this has a similar vibe, although it's set in the present day. The premise made me think Sapphire and Steel - a mysterious otherworldly force that can alter or damage reality - and the main character, Michael, is a confused innocent you can't help rooting for.

[Paul]

loved it

I’m a huge Dave Hutchinson fan and this book, whilst quite different than his Coureurs series, echos it in the best ways. The last 25 pages or so shocked me. Quite a good read and I hope it turns into a series.

[John Day]

Incredible! A very unique story told well.

[Gary Meades]

Dave Hutchinson is the author of just about my favourite ever series, the Fractured Europe sequence, so I had great hopes for this. I wasn't disappointed.

Michael Brookes, an economist working for SIS is in hospital with large gaps in his memory. Slowly recovering he is discharged and sent on a sensitive assignment to the Netherlands. So far, so spy novel, but the trip to the Netherlands opens up a whole new vista. There are groups who want him for his knowledge of the Essence, a phenomena that causes events that are impossible.

What follows is a game of cat and mouse, slow reveals about the history of Essence appearances and a mindboggling twist that I really didn't see coming.

The ending leaves more questions than answers, and I really hope there will be a sequel soon. Loved it.

[Peter Bradley]

The Essence by Dave Hutchinson




Slow Horses meet The Secret History of the World.

Nothing happens for the first twenty percent of this book. We meet Michael. Michael is in some kind of facility, which we learn is a psychiatric hospital. Not much is said about Michael’s situation, but it seems he has had some kind of breakdown that has left him with gaps in his memory. We learn that his last name is Brookes from a third person. He is released from the hospital and returns home, where he meets a social worker named “Jo.” He seems to work in some national security-adjacent ministry, and some of his treatment may stem from that job.

The first long section left me wondering when the story would start. Nothing was happening. Michael didn’t seem particularly interesting or involved in anything important. His prime concern seems to be about getting medically retired. Jo warns him about this possibility and his rights if they call him in.

Michael’s existence seems muffled, hazy, and undefined. He is a man who's been through something traumatic and is gingerly putting his life back together.

Little did I know that this was the most important part of the book.

Keep your eye on the cat.

Not that one, the other one.

Martine in Human Resources calls Michael in to work. She treats him curtly and imperiously, immediately demanding that he travel to the Netherlands to meet with people he has previously worked with in the Dutch counterpart to his own agency. It is an odd, low-level, unexplained mission that seems inappropriate to give to someone who has just returned from a mental breakdown.

Despite trepidations about his mental state, Michael heads off to the Netherlands, where he has a meeting with the Dutch, who claim that there is a mole in Michael’s department. He is given a newspaper article to take back to England to prove the penetration.

At this point, we are heading nicely into spy territory, but we have no idea of what “the Essence” on the cover of the book means.

The story then jumps onto a different track into weirdness and light comedy.

Killing time, Michael stops at a bar in Holland. He watches a dog abduction, sees muscular men in suits get out of a car, and gets a call from Jo telling him that he’s about to be kidnapped. Jo arrives to rescue Michael, and the two go on a weird journey avoiding French kidnappers and learning about the “Essence.”

The Essence is the thing that obsesses “Essenceheads.” Essenceheads know something erupts into the world at odd, unpredictable moments, does weird, random things, and turns things into miracle-producing relics. “Events” might cause flowers to sing or a movie crew on a beach in Poland to disappear. “Relics” might include tennis balls that mentally transport a person to a particular moment in French history or a dog that teleports. These events have been occurring for centuries. The Essence, its events, and its relics have been studied for centuries. Essenceheads are a loosely knit community that largely cooperates but occasionally has conflicts, as when French Essenceheads attempt to kidnap Michael in the Netherlands.

Michael learns about the Essence through his adventures with the Dutch Essenceheads. He is told that someone in his own office has leaked the incredible claim that he knows something about the Essence to the French. He interacts with the French and with an Evangelical quasi-governmental intelligence group. He pleads that everyone is mistaken because he doesn’t know anything about the Essence.

This part of the book is fun. At times it is zany because the scenarios that Michael is put into are zany. Michael goes along with good humor because it doesn’t seem that he has much choice, and I assume he is curious about the zaniness.

The Essence seemed to inhabit the same world as F. Paul Wilson’s “The Secret History of the World.” Wilson has stitched together many of his horror books around the idea that strange events are caused by cosmic entities dueling with each other through the strange events they cause in this world.

My one constant annoyance in this part was the unforced coincidences. Really, Michael just happened to watch the kidnapping of a dog that would play an important role later in the book? Really, Jo – his English Social Worker – just happens to be deeply situated in the Dutch Essencehead community? Really, the Dutch banker he meets in the opening just happens to play a key role later? “Bah,” I thought, “this is asking too much of my suspension of disbelief.”

But Hutchinson pulls it off like a pro. One review described the ending as a “slingshot ending,” where it seems to shoot the novel in a new, higher direction. We do get a resolution to all of my questions in a way that left me stunned and kicking myself for not picking up on the deeper answer sooner.

But this is a well-written book and a lot of fun. All of the puzzles before the final puzzle did their job of keeping my interest and distracting me from asking the right question.

Will there be a sequel?

I doubt it, but Hutchinson has extended his “Fractured Europe Sequence” to four books when I thought the first book was a stand-alone.

So, who knows?

[Abe Ziesing]

Dave Hutchinson: “Do you believe in miracles?”
Me: “I do now!”

2025 was a year filled with plenty of mediocrity when it comes to new genre SF released within the calendar year – with a scant couple of exceptions - that I got a chance to read, anyway. There was Tchaikovsky’s SHROUD with its crazy world-building and Nayler’s award-worthy WHERE THE AXE IS BURRIED that come to mind. One under-the-radar small press release left them all in the dust; in fact, it blew away everything SF that I read all year, and that includes some heavy hitters from the likes of Ballard, Wolfe, Vance, PKD, Zelazny, Banks, Lafferty, etc.. What I’m really trying to say is that THE ESSENCE by Dave Hutchinson is an absolute banger that is inexplicably absent from bookshops and best-of lists, despite its greatness.

Michael is confused. He knows that he’s had some sort of accident that precipitated memory loss, but he’s not quite sure how to start putting the pieces back together despite the hospital’s best rehabilitation efforts in the form of medications, psychiatry and gentle nudges. When he’s unceremoniously released back into the wild and returns to his job as an economist at a small outstation of MI6, things start to come back in fits and starts. His employer wants him to take baby steps, starting with a seemingly simple task on the continent. Cue jet engine firing up noise. Get your seatbelt nice and snug because you’re about to take a ride in a whirlwind of a spy thriller, or is that just an illusory tactic of the author’s to draw the reader into an increasingly baffling world that makes ROADSIDE PICNIC feel… well, like a picnic? Riding a razor’s edge between a catatonic relapse and finding the answers to his life’s missing pieces, Michael must navigate a jigsaw puzzle of conspiracy theorists, governmental special agents and religious crazies in order to save himself, and maybe the world.

This book features some of the coolest science fiction elements and a writing style that is silky smooth. It’s a sure-fire hit for anyone from the mainstreamiest Mary Sue to the trekiest Trekkie dude. Utterly readable, with a pace-car tempo and a mic-drop ending that left me smiling and laughing and shaking my head long after I set it down. Miracles do exist, Mr. Hutchinson. Thank you for reminding me!

[Peter Hollo]

I loved this. I'm a huge fan of Hutchinson's Fractured Europe books, so a different kind of espionage/sci-fi novel from him was an immediate attraction.

The weirdness of the book takes a while to set in, especially because it's (deliberately enough) written in a very matter-of-fact way from the only-sometimes-unreliable POV of a rather confused 60-odd-year-old.
There are a number of reveals through the book, and believe me when I tell you that's right up to the last few pages. Hutchinson doesn't make the mistake of explaining everything by the end, but he brings the story to a nicely effective ending, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions about the higher-level mysteries (while giving us enough hints to form our own picture).

Our narrator is, for most of the novel, one of those fairly-ineffectual male nobody narrators that are littered through genre fiction - but in this story there's a reason for that, or a few reasons, starting with the fact that Michael is recovering from some kind of traumatic mental health episode and has large gaps in his memory.

But really it's not worth folding anything into spoiler tags or anything. It's a great story with some lovely commentaries on the state of the world, particularly on how faith and conspiratorial thinking might mirror each other, and be mirrored in the world of espionage and politics, especially in the post-truth world we now live in. But mostly it doesn't lean on this either - it just tells a windy, intricate story of various people in various communities using each other, some of whom tend towards kindness, and some of whom don't.

Hutchinson's writing is a delight, and he pushes the plot along really well, after a necessarily-sedate beginning.
Yeah, I loved this.

[David]

With his Fractured Europe sequence, Hutchinson captured a niche - espionage mixed with near future science fiction. And very good it was too. With The Essence he plays a similar trick, but different.

Set in the present day, we encounter our protagonist, Michael Brookes, recovering from some kind of breakdown in a “facility” for government employees. Brookes worked for the Treasury, but in some kind of secret service associated department. With gaps in his memory he’s released back into the world and, once called back to the office, is given the task of smoothing over the waters between The Netherlands and the UK at some semi-secret level.

But once there things go decidedly pear shaped when someone tries to kidnap him. He’s saved by his Social Worker, Jo, of all people, who is apparently part of a group that studies something called The Essence. And various people across Europe seem to think Brookes has some knowledge of what the Essence is. Even though he has no idea what they are talking about.

Thus begins his travails in Europe as he’s kidnapped by an American colonel, saved again, hidden, briefed on The Essence and its effects and the various theories about what it actually is (God? A Divine force? Something stranger?). Eventually some kind of conference is called in Poland where all the major Essenceheads gather to discuss the situation. This is all handled with great panache by Hutchinson who is a very good writer. We feel Brookes’ exasperation at the situation he finds himself in.

This is a hugely enjoyable read and when the last chapter flips everything on its head, making you question everything that has gone before while setting up a sequel, you know you’re in the hands of a great writer.

Highly recommended.

[Mark Nuzzi]

A man walks into a bar—we all have a different line after this one don't we.
Well, many things happen after the bar visit to our protagonist Michael Brookes...but alas, he cannot remember any of it. But isn't that what every person says in reality anyway after a few drinks. I swear—I don't remember—or I don't know what you're talking about.
Moving on.
As Michael accepts a section of his memory is lost, he is sent on a mission for British intelligence and makes contact with the essenceheads. The essence is something beyond explanation, a thing that needs to be witnessed. Seeing is believing and all that.
The first 100 pages of this novel I was all in. Diving deeper into what is the essence. And why are these events happening to Michael. And the absurdity of it all from the readers POV...that's you and me.
The next 150 pages, I admit, was drawn out....and frankly just one long travel scene with just enough intrigue to keep me turning the pages.
The last 25 pages were solid...very Christopher Priest like. And that's a win for me.

3.75 Stars

[H]

Hmmm. I hate pills. No way would I take pills that are not labelled with a name and without looking them up - on more than one site. Even then, probably not. They all have side effects? Yes, doesn't mean we can't choose the least nasty if we must at all.

It's amazing how many have side effects that cause, or aggravate the very thing they are prescribed to stop.

And Michael just takes them...

Anyway the Essence.
This is a bunch of weird occurrences and/things inc living things that cause? are affected? by weird things.

Various groups and govt depts from various countries panic about this and run about like headless chickens threatening each other and trying to control the things and/or other people involved.

We find out about Michael. we do not find out the why and how.
Which is fine.

I like Hutchinsons weird happenings books (The Incredible Exploding Man is another). Writing a why and how and maybe a we now have control often turns a book from fascinating and mysterious into silly or not so good.

He resisted doing that. And therefore 4 stars.

[K.V. Johansen]

This was great -- Hutchinson at his best! Interesting characters, a hero one cares about, twisty mysteries unfolding, strange and bizarre happenings taken in stride, a wry look at the way groups form and fracture, and Archie, who is charming. The landscape of Europe becomes a very present factor in the story, too, which I enjoyed.

[SteveRv]

The first 1/3 of the book started off slowly but it held my interest. But the 2nd 1/3 just dragged on and in while Michael had a ridiculous number of conversations with Jo that just became monotonous. I ended up skipping to the last chapter to only be left with a cliff hanger ending that just didn’t keep,my interest enough to make me interested in the next book

[Steve Mepham]

Another fine tale from the imagination of Mr Hutchinson.
Although standalone, this has the feel of the Fractured Europe books about it with seemingly ordinary people caught up in events that they only slowly come to understand.
No spoilers, but do go and read this.

[Nick J Taylor]

incredible storytelling

Three books in from this author and they’ve all been excellent. He is a master of structure and pace. There is a subtlety to his characterisation that grounds the fantastic elements of the story. Great read.

[Jesse]

“Was the world so awful that it was more comforting to abandon rationality and embrace superstition instead?”

[Chris]

Another fun and engaging, if not particularly memorable read from Hutchinson.

[Remi]

One of the most original books I've read so far this year.
This is an amalgamation of stranger things and slow horses. And it works splendidly.
The author even did us the favor of not including any cringey and unnecessary romantic relationships. Kudos for keeping it asexual (ace).