All of humankind has been reduced to the height of a handspan. Most of us don't survive the shift in scale - those of us who were carrying a particularly heavy box of books at precisely the wrong moment, for example, or have fillings in our teeth, or implants that remained unchanged while our bodies contracted around them. Only one in nine of us live to tell the tale - but in those first hours, days and weeks, what that tale might be is entirely unclear. What has happened? Why? How will humanity adapt, no longer the dominant species? Does size matter? Pitting ourselves against the trauma of a dramatically changed world, we are about to find out. Extremely funny and extremely ambitious, The Expanded Earth is a masterfully paced and plotted story of mad scientists, vengeful phytoplankton and improvised survival. Stunningly illustrated in scratchboard and ink, it is a book that immediately relocates us in our physical environment, and ultimately celebrates the capacity of small things to effect great change. The Expanded Earth marks the arrival of a spellbinding new talent.