It’s the dawn of the 22nd century, and the world has fallen apart. Decades of war and resource depletion have toppled governments. The ecosystem has collapsed. A new dust bowl sweeps the American West. The United States has become a nation of migrants -starving masses of nomads who seek out a living in desert wastelands and encampments outside government seed-distribution warehouses.
In this new … warehouses.
In this new world, there is a new power. Satori is more than just a corporation, she is an intelligent, living city that grew out of the ruins of Denver. Satori bioengineers both the climate-resistant seed that feeds a hungry nation, and her own post-human genetic Designers, Advocates, and Laborers. What remains of the United States government now exists solely to distribute Satori seed; a defeated American military doles out bar-coded, single-use Satori seed to the nation’s starving citizens.
When one of Satori’s Designers goes rogue, Agent Sienna Doss-Ex-Army Ranger turned glorified bodyguard-is tasked by the government to bring her
in: The government wants to use the Designer to break Satori’s stranglehold on seed production and reassert themselves as the center of power.
Sianna Doss’s search for the Designer intersects with Brood and his younger brother Pollo — orphans scrapping by on the fringes of the wastelands. Pollo is abducted, because he is believed to suffer from Tet, a newly emergent disease, the victims of which are harvested by Satori.
As events spin out of control, Brood and Sienna Doss find themselves at the heart of Satori, where an explosive climax promises to reshape the future of the world.
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What if food was hard to come by … and what you could find might kill you? “Seed,” a science fiction novel by Robert Ziegler, explores this scenario in a thoughtful and entertaining manner.
Set in a future world, where climatic change has made traditional food sources obsolete, there is a bio-genetically created living city that provides all the seed that will grow in this new environment. But the people who created this city have their own agenda, one that does not have the common good at heart.
In this debut novel, Ziegler paints a world where living conditions are harsh, people live for themselves and altruism is hard to come by. Into this world, he sends an autistic boy and his brother, a soldier who still has nightmares from her imprisonment in Siberia, and an assorted supporting cast of characters who are not always what they seem at first glance.
There is Brood and his autistic brother Pollo. They are scavengers, using trade to get the food they need, traveling with a less-than-ideal role model, who nevertheless keeps food in their stomachs and often a roof over their heads. Little does anyone know … reader included … the important role that Pollo will play in the future of the human race.
There is Sergeant Sienna Doss, a tough soldier who always completes her missions, but is haunted by images of snow falling on corpses from her captivity in Siberia. Thankfully, she is the type of soldier who knows when not to follow orders.
There are Pihadassa and Sumedha, bio-genetically engineered siblings and mates who separately unravel the plot that could destroy humanity … but develop entirely different ways to solve that dilemma.
And all roads eventually lead to Satori, a living city made of flesh and blood grown over the ruins of Denver, Colo. Satori produces the seed that feeds what is left of the people of the United States. But Satori is not self-aware … it is a mindless beast the does the will of the fathers … the four men who created it. It nurtures them in pods, while they wait for their creations, Pihadassa and Sumedha, to design a genetic graft that will make them uniquely adapted to the new world.
The research conducted to develop that graft led to the creation of the Tet, a disease dispersed through the seed that slowly kills you by destroying your joints and connective tissues.
In the hands of an inexperienced or untalented writer, having a cast as large and geographically diverse as those in Seed, can leave the reader always wondering who is the focus from one chapter to the next. But Zeigler did an excellent job of creating rich, culturally and psychologically diverse characters that you wanted to continue reading about. Each had a distinct and unique voice, so you were never lost.
Reading Seed pulls you into a wasteland of a world, where simple things such as family, are the only things that keep you alive. Family defined by behavior, not necessarily blood. A world where kids must be adults; where religion is used to terrorize and subdue; where good and evil are not as clear as one would hope.
Ziegler deftly takes you through that world, switching from one character to the next with grace and ease, as they all converge on Satori. And the ending you think you see coming constantly eludes you.