The Burn Line by Jonathan Sims (Gollancz, £25) then adds another element to go with economic collapse, social decay and environmental disaster. The five passengers in one particular carriage on that train are vaguely aware afterwards that something awful happened during the delay. Wisconsin computer programmer Scott, in The Traveler by Joseph Eckert (Tor, £22), is an ordinary man with an ordinary life until the morning he unwillingly jumps forward in time by exactly 24 hours. From then on, each day at 7.52 am, he experiences another jump — with the time lost doubling on every occasion. They’re in their 30s when the whole world becomes first obsessed and then panicked by an inexplicable signal from outer space.