Michel Faber’s latest novel is about the search for comfort in the face of life’s tragedies. Peter Leigh is a Christian missionary recruited by an organization known as USIC to be the pastor on a distant planet called Oasis. He leaves behind his wife to work with both the USIC employees stationed on Oasis and the planet’s natives. THE BOOK OF STRANGE NEW THINGS is a meditation on the meaning of faith and the consequences of devotion.