The Waiter
Kwan Ann Tan
We send all orders via Royal Mail: within the UK, choose from 1st Class, 2nd Class or Special Delivery; for the rest of the world, International Standard or International Tracked. Delivery and packaging charges are calculated automatically at the checkout.
To collect orders in person from the Bookshop, choose Click and Collect at the checkout.
From the publisher
“Brilliantly inventive and moving. I’ve not read anything like it before.” ~ Soula Emmanuel
An interactive fiction debut by Kwan Ann Tan inviting readers to pick their way through a future London on the brink of collapse.
London, in a not-too-distant future. The city is being swallowed into the ground, the rich are still getting richer, and Waiters do the jobs you don’t have time for. They queue for your concert tickets, stay in for your deliveries and stir your risotto.
Step into the shoes of an unnamed Waiter who has no recollection of who they were before their role at the Company. Now select your next job and decide whether to peek into the client’s luggage, and if you’ll risk losing work credits by helping a tired woman with her shopping. Balance your humanity with your job security at every turn, and manage your creeping desire to understand who you once were, and who you might become. You’ll want to crawl as close as possible to the edge of the maw without falling into its depths.
With 11 different endings and countless journeys towards them, The Waiter creates a labyrinthine world of possibilities and parallel worlds which combine to explore queer longing, consumerism and agency in a city and a psyche on the brink of collapse.
Cover designed by Mark Andrew Webber.