The reader is introduced to THT’s patronymic naming system via “newness” in the SF-specific, Huntingtonian sense. In the first section, we are clued in to the fact that something is awry in the book’s world, naming-wise, by the sort of ominous catalogue of pedestrian Catholic school-girl-sounding names: “Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June” (4).