Douglas Coupland has long been a shrewd observer of modernity. He shares Brett Easton Ellis's concern with the enervating effects of consumerism and Chuck Palahniuk's fascination with strange subcultures. But Coupland is more optimistic than these two. In his novels, angst is often assuaged by a knowing reference to an obscure indie band or a fireside chat with like-minded slackers.

His latest novel is a quirky glance into a near future in which bees have disappeared and much of the population has become addicted to Solon, a drug that "mimics the solitude one feels when reading a good book". The absence of bees reflects the damage that has been done to nature and the novel is an earnest plea for authentic communication in an ever-more isolated world. On the way, Coupland touches on an ambitious array of topics  the internet, globalisation, blogging, ecological catastrophe and the need for meaning in a godless universe.

The narrative kicks off with five loners from the US, Canada, France, New Zealand and Sri Lanka mysteriously being stung by bees. These insect attacks are a necessary stab of reality into a society dominated by simulacra and mediation.

Split into sound-bite-sized chapters, Generation A buzzes between the bee-stung characters. The five express themselves in Coupland's breezy style and their accounts are enlivened by observations about the banalities of popular culture. Four of them are introspective slackers familiar from Coupland's other novels, the sort of people who spend their time playing World of Warcraft or making "Earth sandwiches". The fifth, Harj, is much more interesting. A Sri Lankan working in an Abercrombie & Fitch call centre, he is whisked to the US after he is stung.

Quickly assimilated and renamed "Apu" after the Indian convenience store owner in The Simpsons, Harj reflects that "Americans can only absorb one foreign sounding word or name per year". Coupland uses Harj to comment on the apparent inability of Americans (Harj calls them "Craigs") to engage with foreign cultures and some of his observations are very funny.

Generation A loses its way when the five protagonists are taken to a remote Canadian island where they engage in a strange form of group therapy, telling stories to each other under the supervision of a scientist called Serge. Coupland here reworks the oral trope of his debut, Generation X, in which the characters told stories as an antidote to their alienation. But the stories swapped by the five  with cringe-worthy titles like "Superman and the Kryptonite Martinis" or "The Man Who Lost His Story"  are contrived, self-conscious and, worst of all, dull. What was fresh and exciting in Generation X now seems glibly self-referential. Rather than finding a new vocabulary for this new age, Coupland has ended up producing a tired parody.