Summary

The apocalyptic novel Hollow Kingdom explores a world in which humans are devolving into drooling creatures whose bodies are falling apart. They seek out screens and shiny things while ignoring or attacking the animals they used to love and take care of. For the most part, the story is narrated by S.T., a domesticated American crow who self-identifies as a human. However, a few interspersed chapters are narrated by other anthropomorphized animals who offer their observations about the chaos around them.

Chapter 1 is subtitled “S.T.: A Small Craftsman Home in Ravenna, Seattle, Washington, USA.” The narrator is not identified until the end of the chapter. He begins by stating, “I should have known something was dangerously wrong long before I did,” but he had to face reality when his housemate's eyeball fell out (1). His housemate, an electrician named Big Jim, had been...