Pakistan, April 15 -- In Chaos Walking, Todd Hewitt is learning to be a man - and in Prentisstown, ostensibly the only settlement to survive humanity's arrival on the planet New World, this means keeping your thoughts to yourself.

Something about the planet makes men's consciousness audible and visible to others. As such, they must constantly hide their thoughts by focusing on something else, rehearsing daily chores or even just reciting their own names again and again. Women were unaffected, apparently, but rarely glimpsed aliens called the Spackle killed them all years ago, condemning the settlement to eventual extinction.

If this account of things seems a little off, imagine it delivered by an especially troubled-looking Mads Mikkels...