CBC is proud to present the 2010 Massey Lectures, by celebrated
Canadian author and artist, Douglas Coupland. A cultural commentator
with international impact, Coupland presents this year's lectures in
the form of a novel, Player One. What is to Become of Us.

The novel and lecture together present a story set over five hours
in an airport lounge which asks; at what point do humans stop being
humans and become something else? Where, if anywhere, do modernity
and classical theology overlap? What is time? What is the human
essence? And how does storytelling fit into all of this?

Karen, Rick, Luke and Rachel are four people marooned in an airport
lounge sometime in the very near future. The price of oil goes through
the roof, and a kind of apocalypse takes over the world- or at least
the world that they can see through the windows of the bar and on the
crackling, intermittent news reports. Thick ash falls from the sky.
The taps are dry. Cellphones don't work. Sealed in, the four can only
talk to each other, examine their lives and the meaning of love, and
try to confront their own demons. There is no turning back, they
realize.

Are we ants or are we divine? A new age is dawning.
What is to become of us?

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