Living With Annie is brilliant, unsettling science fiction that blends medical thriller, sci-fi and love story into something genuinely original. If Black Mirror did a book club with Kazuo Ishiguro and Jeff VanderMeer, this would be the assigned reading. Don’t be misled by the title, as I was. This book has absolutely nothing to do with living with a lady called Annie.
The premise is deceptively simple but executed brilliantly. Jon Caldicot is a microbiologist working in a mycotherapy lab studying a parasitic fungus nicknamed “Annie” (Aeisitos neuromethistes, if you want to get technical). Annie can infiltrate a host’s nervous system and replace dying neurons cell by cell while preserving memories, personality, consciousness. When Jon’s boyfriend Scott is diagnosed with Scander’s disease, a fictional terminal neurodegenerative illness that will slowly destroy his brain, Jon sees a radical solution. Infect Scott with Annie, and maybe he’ll survive.
The problem? Annie has never been tested on humans, there are strict laws preventing exactly this kind of use, early test subjects showed disturbing episodes of violent behavior during sporogenesis, Jon’s boss Professor Lazenby blocks the idea, and the company funding the research won’t approve it. So Jon breaks every rule, lies to everyone he works with, and finds a dying man willing to try anything.
What makes this book memorable is how it refuses to be just one thing. It’s a medical thriller with corporate intrigue and lab procedures that feel completely plausible. It’s a love story, though not primarily a romance. Jon’s feelings for Scott drive the plot, but the book is more interested in what love justifies than in the relationship itself. It’s an ethical thought experiment that asks genuinely uncomfortable questions about consciousness, identity, and medical ethics. It’s also sort of a philosophical meditation on what makes us human.
The LGBTQ+ representation here is exactly what representation should look like but so rarely does. Jon and Scott are gay men, their relationship is absolutely central to the story. But this isn’t A Gay Book™ with coming-out narratives or homophobia subplots or any of the tired tropes that reduce queer characters to their sexuality. The book shows how LGBTQ+ stories don’t always have to be romance-centered or identity-focused.
The science in this book feels real in a way that so much sci-fi doesn’t. Christmas clearly did serious homework on mycology, neuroscience, genetics, and lab procedures. The fictional fungus is explained with enough biological detail to feel plausible, without ever becoming a textbook.
The book’s structure is one of the book’s greatest strengths and also one of its potential stumbling blocks depending on your preferences. The book plays with POV, narrating directly to you, the reader, often breaking the fourth wall. “So let me tell you about Annie. For there is much you need to understand before you make your decision. First, though, you must promise to hear me out.” The book, however, occasionally shifts to third person or to other characters’ perspectives, particularly Anthony Cogan, which can be a bit confusing, and readers who prefer clean POV separation might struggle with it. The chapters are also quite long sometimes.
Christmas can genuinely write, and the prose here is often beautiful in ways that transcend genre. The philosophical sections, particularly near the end, are stunning. There are lines that will spring out of nowhere and surprise you with your beauty, “By the simplest acts – sowing seeds into the warm dark earth, watching a bee on its desultory way, kissing the eyes of the man I love – I am plumbed into the wellsprings of potentiality.” Moreover, the book’s treatment of corporate malfeasance and scientific ethics feels disturbingly timely.
Fair warnings that this is contemplative sci-fi, not a thriller. The pacing is deliberate, wrapped in layers of ethical debate and philosophical reflection. Some readers will find it slow. It deals with terminal illness, mortality, consent, bodily autonomy, and the ethics of human experimentation, so it’s not emotionally light. If you want gripping action, clean answers and clear heroes and villains, you’ll be frustrated. But if you want science fiction that treats you like an intelligent reader, this is absolutely worth your time.
Final verdict: Living with Annie is perfect for readers who loved Never Let Me Go, Annihilation, Flowers for Algernon, or The Left Hand of Darkness. It’s beautifully written, ethically complex,and genuinely original in a genre that often feels like it’s exhausted its possibilities. A page-turning sci-fi medical tear-jerker that deserves far more attention than it’s getting.
You can get your copy of Living with Annie here!
