“I tried to sigh,” Alba says. “But that banged my head into the roof.” Alba is not in a good way – she is squashed into a small space getting increasingly smaller. She is with Stanley and Drew, who are each in different cramped spaces – the three can only communicate through walls and vents. They are not sure if they are alone in their plight – they do know they are on a spaceship called Audition, and that: “This is a beautiful ship”.

The ship is propelled by amplified sound, “It had only been used as torture before but it worked for travel as well.” They decided to rebel, to stop making noise to propel Audition, that’s the mistake they have made. “We were stupid to stay quiet”, because that means they have started to grow again – it isn’t their spaces that are getting smaller, they are getting bigger. And they were giants to begin with, that’s why they have been shot into space.

The reader pieces together Alba’s story, and that of Stanley and Drew. There are many others, other giants, other ships. It becomes clear that their original stories are buried beneath layers and layers of implanted thoughts, many from romantic comedies. “Does anyone know where we are?” Stanley says. “Like in the scheme of things.” They have spent time in an indoctrination facility, the classroom, heavily sedated. Learning to think of themselves as stupid, learning to “push the switches and pull the levers and read the meters”.

But life before the classroom is a blur. Until it isn’t, and the reader learns the awful truth. Alba and Stanley had fallen into state custody, Drew is connected to their stories. But regardless of their background, they and all the other giants are seen as different, so they are judged to pose a threat whatever they have done. They are being sent off-world. If they find another planet, they will die on it or conquer it in the name of an unknowing home-planet. Those left behind will be relieved either way, relieved to have been freed of an inconvenient problem.

Alba is a tragic figure, condemning herself, holding out no hope. “She knew she was frightening, was she more or less frightening without hope?” Despite her nihilism she yearns for connection, but who can she trust? “There seemed to be no end to the men they were left alone with who would rape them”. She blames herself for her situation, she feels guilty about her despicable treatment of Stanley and of Drew, but she sees all events, past and future, as inevitable. Audition is about how that needn’t be the case – maybe the system can be organised so it is not Alba who has to change, it is her environment that can change to be a place where “Everything is in hand. Nothing can do any harm”, and she can relax enough to feel hope.

Audition is a mesmerising read, shockingly violent occasionally, and wonderfully inventive.