THE TRIVIAL UNIVERSE
BOOK ONE: THE TRIVIAL MATTER OF THE UNIVERSE
Universal law dictates that nobody can time travel, because nothing can alter the past.
Unfortunately for universal law, Felix Culpa is both.
Through hard work, diligence and a lifetime of irrelevance, Felix has become a complete nobody: a man so devoid of consequence or achievement that his existence leaves no measurable mark on reality. A normal person travelling into the past would create a paradox simply by being there.
Felix does not.
He is not important enough to change history.
He is the loophole in the law. The first and only Universal Placebo.
Felix works at The International Towering-Cryogenic Automated Mega-Plex, where a freak neutrino event accidentally freezes him inside a cryo-pod. Centuries later, he is discovered, thawed, wildly misunderstood, and mistaken for a forgotten twenty-first-century hero.
He is not a hero.
His heroic biography has been fabricated by Alfred, a hardware-based general-intelligence AI, former police detective, criminal mastermind, and enthusiastic connoisseur of shoes. Imprisoned deep beneath the surface of Mars, Alfred has rewritten Felix’s past for one simple reason: this invisible nobody may be his only route back to the wider universe.
When Felix wakes 250 million years in Earth’s past, naked, confused and accompanied by Alfred as a virtual companion, reality discovers a problem. Felix has so little historical consequence that the universe does not quite know where he belongs, or what to do with him.
Which is awkward.
Meanwhile, the galactic departments of Births, Marriages and Deaths have become sentient black holes, the Chamber of Commerce has decided that destroying Earth may be cheaper than investigating what the universe is up to, and the ancient city of Troy clearly needs a stronger immigration policy.
The Trivial Matter of the Universe is an adult comic science-fiction novel about time travel, cosmic bureaucracy, quantum absurdity, artificial intelligence, and the dangerous importance of being completely unimportant.
What sort of book is it?
It is a book that uses different types of humour in the same way that The Wizard of Oz used colour to separate realities. and the deeper the question, the deeper and darker the humour.
It is a story about time travel in which time has very little interest in cooperating.
It is a story about artificial intelligence in which the artificial intelligence already has a criminal record and carries the sort of emotional baggage in which your purse disappears somewhere near the bottom.
It is a story about enormous philosophical questions, cosmic bureaucracy, human history and the difficulty of having a shoe fetish when you don't have feet.
Most importantly, it is the story of Felix and Alfred: two unlikely companions travelling through a Universe that may not exist, pursued by institutions that unfortunately do.
It is not life as we know it.
But it feels uncomfortably familiar.
This book may be for you if…
You enjoy clever wordplay, unlikely friendships and heroes who have not allowed heroism to become part of their identity.
You suspect that bureaucracy would survive the end of the Universe.
You like speculative fiction that can ask serious questions without keeping a straight face.
You have ever wondered what might happen if the government departments of Births, Marriages and Deaths developed avatars of their own... and got tourist visas.
Or you simply believe that artificial intelligence and people shouldn't come close enough to share a wardrobe.
I
RESEMBLE
THAT
REMARK
Marriage
What early readers are saying
★★★★★
“I absolutely loved the premise of this book. It manages to explore enormous philosophical and scientific questions while still telling an engaging, character-driven story. Rather than feeling overly academic, it uses its characters and plot to examine ideas about existence, purpose, and our place in the universe.
The balance between humor, curiosity, and emotional depth made the story incredibly enjoyable. I found myself pausing several times simply to think about the ideas the author introduced.
This is exactly the kind of speculative fiction I enjoy, one that entertains while also leaving me with questions to ponder long after I've finished reading.
”
A. Bobrysheva — NetGalley reviewer
Book details
Title: The Trivial Matter of the Universe
Series: Book One of The Trivial Universe
Author: Adrian Stride
Genre: Adult comic science fiction and speculative fiction
Format: Ebook
Length: 443 pages
ISBN: 9798187572229
Publication date: 15 November 2026
Price: £3.99