Set about 20 years from now, when corporations and governments trade "extinction credits" to offset the species they wipe out (one credit for a regular species, 13 for an "intelligent" one), the post-Brexit UK has become a kind of insular North Korea, and out of sheer embarrassment "everyone agreed to just stop referring to America some time in the late 2020's", this is a razorly satire whose humor is 50% between the lines. I'm not quite sure it sticks the landing, which involves a deus ex machina A.I. entity that sounds like it was conceived by Douglas Adams, but this is one of the funniest, cleverest, not to mention best-titled, books I've read in ages and I'm glad it won the Clarke.