In a post apocalyptic America, a young outlander is captured and processed as a new citizen of a high walled citadel. Unable to leave, he soon becomes the house-guest of a security officer whose life he saved in the outlands. A passage to freedom can be arranged, but his growing infatuation with the city and for his benefactor’s daughter makes him unwilling to leave. If he stays, he may be faced … faced with compromising his beliefs for a woman he loves.
Then an unfortunate turn of events leads to him becoming an unwelcome guest in a city that appears increasingly dystopian and alien to him. Without any support in this foreign land, he must try to leave whilst evading arrest. Fortunately, there are those on the outside who have not given up looking for him yet.
It is the tale of the interaction of two alternative and conflicting cultures as exemplified through the interactions of two men who try to appreciate each other’s world. They share many joint interests but hold to different values.
Society is at the dawn of a transhumanist transformation that is using technology to master nature. However some outlanders who remain beyond the pale, feel that nature itself is about to change, and will transform everything in its wake.
Keywords = Science Fiction, New adult, Romance, Dystopian, metaphysical, Visionary, transhumanism, technology, surveillance, Native American.
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If you are a Sci-Fi fan, or like me, you want to have a peek at such a world then this is a good portal. I enjoyed this epic tale of a possible future Earth from the outset. The story is based on Denver but using the author’s imagination could quite easily have been created anywhere.
The characters are well-drawn and the imagery is good. The dialogue is good and although the narrative and dialogue sometimes sounded stilted, I thought it added to the futuristic nature of the story. By `stilted’ in this context I mean as if it were people speaking English as a second language.
Why then did it work for me? Simply because in a post-apocalyptic world I imagine there would be so much re-learning and adapting by many cultures and sub-cultures. I believe language and dialect would be affected.
Why 4* and not 5*? Perhaps as a fellow writer I am continually aware of typos and grammar and on a few occasions these made me pause. I believe that with another edit, the minor issues I discovered would have been spotted, but I know the feeling myself.
Those things aside, within this tale you will find adventure, love, friendship, deceit and self-sacrifice and a lot more besides. Relationships are formed and maintained, while emotions are taken on a roller-coaster ride in some cases. Human traits are kept alive however far into the future this story has leapt. I was particularly pleased to see the Native American influence being utilised.
Apart from those superb areas I have already mentioned, I think this story worked for me because there were sections of incredible detail and in several areas. This points to personal experience or good research and for that I applaud the author. For me, detail and sense of place help to transport the reader to the world of the characters. That makes for good fiction.
Superb glimpse into a divided Dystopian future …
This is a book that really hits the ground running, and in this case, quite literally. In the opening chapter we see two of the central characters, each one a valued member of their respective communities, come together when one comes to the aid of the other. The older of the two comes from a walled in society that has embraced and relies on advanced technology to enhance its citizen’s lives, yet at the same time monitoring every aspect of their existence, whilst the other lives in one of many small native communities, reliant instead on nature and the environment, and with a polar opposite view of man and his surroundings. This heralds the start of an adventure for the younger of the two that leads to a whole new world of advanced technology, unexpected friendships, violence, some explicit sex, romance, and indeed love, all intertwined with the ultimate goal of a return to his own people. There is a good introduction and preface to the book, giving a comprehensive outline of how the world came to be the way it is, eliminating the need for too much contrived dialogue to convey the same information in the body of the book, relying instead on passing comments and throw away references to fill in the gaps. Action and dialogue are very well balanced and equally convincing, continually adding to ad driving the story forward. An added bonus, and totally in keeping with a Sci-Fi theme there is an accompanying website link to the book, the author’s own wordpress blog, giving lots of additional background and explanatory information to the world and technology in which events take place.
Although a Sci-fi novel, this is not what I would call ‘hard’ sci-fi in the sense of an Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke novel; it doesn’t entirely rely on immersing the reader in far flung advanced technology or totally alien concepts, concentrating instead on developing the characters and what they’re doing, giving the book a real depth to it. The time period being set in the relative near future ensures that the technology and science, although highly advanced and with a definite sci-fi feel to it, are still very much rooted in the science of today thereby giving the book an added authenticity. Some of the themes will be familiar to sci-fi fans, namely the Dystopian concept of an enclosed technology based society surrounded by a less (technologically) advanced native population and the almost paranoid and obsessive monitoring and control of its citizens, having already been explored in both print and on screen – there are definite echoes of Brave New world, Shape of Things to Come, Nineteen Eighty Four, and Logan’s Run to name but a few, but the author treats these concepts with an original approach and with the added hindsight of current advancements and the potential of the emerging technologies of today.
I did feel however that the period in which the novel s set, i.e. circa 2060, was a tad too early considering where we’re at in society today and the immense engineering challenges the new world in habitants would have faced, not to mention the time it would have taken for society to recover from its original collapse. There were a couple of very minor typos and grammatical issues that might well have been picked up by one last line by line edit but certainly not so much of an issue to diminish my enjoyment or my 5 star rating. Overall though, this was a totally believable Dystopian sci-fi story, exceptionally well researched in relation to the native culture and background of the ‘outlanders,’ as well as the financial machinations that might well yet lead to the sort of collapse as befell the society of the book. The story is well concluded, providing a comprehensive round up of events, as well as a brief glimpse beyond – and best of all, the conclusion begs for a sequel, which I will surely be reading when it comes out. Great book!