Unless You

"Unless You" is a novel written by J. D. Brooks which was read and reviewed by a Federal Bureau of Control book club, called the Bureau Book Bunch, in October 2019.

Background

The book was given a 3/5 by Cpt. Lopez, a 4/5 by Phillip Philson, and a 2/5 by L. Samson. The book appears to hold significant paranatural properties (possibly some kind of Altered Item or Object of Power), with its contents seemingly appearing differently to each of its readers, not influenced by their tastes in literature. Lopez perceived the book as a young adult dystopian romance novel, Phillip perceived it as an unconventional horror novel, and Samson perceived it as a science fiction space opera. The sole connecting element between each version is the presence of an antagonistic force known as "the Fix" (or some rendition thereof, such as "the Fixers"}.

Another property of the book is that character deaths (and/or disappearances) appear to mirror the deaths of the reviewers, with both the title and "Fix" antagonist seemingly warning the book club members of their impending doom as depicted in the novel "unless" they try to change or "fix" their circumstances. Whether this is influenced by the book, is a sign of predictive capabilities, or otherwise is unknown. All three of its Bureau reviewers were killed during the Hiss invasion on October 29, 2019, in ways identical to events they perceived in the book:

• Lopez saw the female protagonist of her book die "out in the unknown, alone and surrounded by danger, but never los[ing] sight of the goal", describing it as a "good soldier's death." She was later killed, along with her Ranger squad, after being overwhelmed by the Hiss during a Jukebox expedition in the Scrapyard area of Quarry Site Beta. She used her last moments to record a warning to the Bureau, never losing sight of her mission to support the FBC.
• Phillip noted a character who was ordered to watch monitors for the rest of his life whose fate was left unknown, "follow[ing] orders from [his] boss in the middle of [a] horrible slaughterfest." Phillip did the same during the Hiss invasion, being ordered to monitor the Arctic Queen Altered Item and later being attacked by it and disappearing, presumed to be killed. This is heard occurring by Jesse Faden.
• Samson was discontent at his favorite character dying "less than halfway" through the book by ""getting a battery cylinder launched into his face by a gravitational anomaly." Samson dies the same way due to a mail tube launched by the Floppy Disk Object of Power, which is witnessed by Jesse Faden.