The age we know has long since fallen asleep. Where once there was Europe, there are now only three labyrinthine cities that have grown rather than been built. The world belongs to the animals. Fish argue over sodomy, theologians with hawk heads search archives for evidence of humanity, and Cyrus Golden, the lion, governs the state of the three cities. When an overpowering adversary threatens the new society, he sends the wolf Dimitri as a diplomat to seek an ally in what was once North America. The night journey across the ocean and into the deep tunnels of natural history teaches the wolf risky lessons about war, art, and politics, leading him to the edge of his world, where he realizes why what happened to humanity has happened. The novel "The Abolition of Species" stands in the tradition of great speculative literature about decline and how it unfolds.