The
Book of Eadie
Vol. 1
of the SEVENTEEN Trilogy
By
Mark D. Diehl
Genre:
Science Fiction, Dystopia, Post-Objectivist, Evolutionary Anthropology –
fiction
Corporations control all of Earth’s diminishing resources and
all of its governments, dividing the world into two types of people: those who
unquestioningly obey, and those who die.
Most of the seventeen billion humans on the planet are
unconscious, perpetually serving their employers as part of massive brain
trusts. The ecosystem has collapsed, naturally growing plants have been
declared illegal, and everything from food to housing to medicines must be
synthesized from secretions of genetically modified bacteria. Only corporate
ambulatory workers can afford patented synthetic food, and non-corporates fight
for survival in the city’s sprawling, grotesquely violent ghetto known only as
the Zone.
Nineteen year-old waitress Eadie challenges the hierarchy when
she assists a bedraggled alcoholic known as the Prophet, drawing massive
social-control machinery into play against her. The Prophet predicts she’s the
general who will lead a revolution, and a few desperate souls start listening.
How can she and her followers possibly prevail when she’s being hunted by a
giant corporation and the Federal Angels it directs?
About
the Author
Mark D. Diehl writes novels about power dynamics and the way
people and organizations influence each other. He believes that obedience and
conformity are becoming humanity’s most important survival skills, and that we
are thus evolving into a corporate species.
Diehl has: been homeless in Japan, practiced law with a major
multinational firm in Chicago, studied in Singapore, fled South Korea as a
fugitive, and been stranded in Hong Kong.
After spending most of his youth running around with hoods and
thugs, he eventually earned his doctorate in law at the University of Iowa and
did graduate work in creative writing at the University of Chicago. He
currently lives and writes in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.
EXCERPT:
“Mutation is the hand of God.”
— The Prophet
“Sometimes nature switches the order a little; that’s called a
mutation.”
— Dok Murray, Herbalist
XVII
↕
VIXI
(Latin)
↕
“I have lived”
Outside the building where Lawrence had last seen Eadie:
A Federal truck sat parked in the street in front of the
building, the shape obscured by its electric camouflage and the deepening
darkness. The Feds must have captured Eadie by now. They would bring her out
any minute.
Lawrence had no weapon. Gene-spliced
Federal Angels were three times his size, and there might be two or three of
them with her. He would attack them anyway.
That was just how it was with Eadie.
Lightning flashed and thunder shook
the ground.
His brain felt so tiny and
insignificant with the EI shut down. For the first time in his life, Lawrence
was completely cut off from everything and everyone, but he had brought those
Feds to Eadie and he had to find a way to help her, even by himself, with his
own minuscule, disconnected brain.
A woman emerged from the building,
heading straight for Lawrence. He ducked back around the corner, pressing
himself flat against the wall.
She came around to stand in front of
him. Her frizzy brown hair spilled over a bright blue patch on the shoulder of
her beige overcoat. Her pale face was wrinkled and haggard but her jaw was set
and her eyes were steely.
“You’re that student who was with the
General!” she said.
Lawrence looked past her, trying to
appear disinterested. “What makes you say that?”
She gestured at his uniform. “Not
many like you around here. And you better learn to look around corners right,
or you’re gonna get killed.”
“What? I don’t –”
She tilted her head to the side,
holding her fingers in front of her face as if they were gripping the vertical
edge of a wall. “You can’t just poke your head around the wall.” She imitated
him, moving her head around her hands. “That’s gonna get you hurt. Way to do it
is stand back from the wall and scoot your body out so you can look.” She did
it with the real wall this time, peeking at the Federal truck from a couple of
steps back from the corner. She turned back to him. “That way, nobody sees your
big ol’ head poking around the side.”
“Okay,” Lawrence said. He gave a tiny
shrug. “Thanks.”
“You’re gonna need to know that
stuff, serving General Eadie,” she said. “She’s fightin’ for all of us, and for
God! Gotta know what you’re doing if you’re fighting for God.”
“What?”
The woman nodded. “The General. That
Prophet, he told me. She’ll set us all free. Sent to us by God, he said, and
when you look at her, you can see it. She’s the solution, and I’m tellin’
everybody. Gonna get a piece a charcoal and write it all over.” The woman
traced a shape on the wall with her fingers, boxing in an imaginary letter.
“E,” she said. She moved her hands, boxing another imaginary letter. “D.” The
woman smiled at Lawrence. “You should do it, too. She’ll end all the misery in
this world, and I’m gonna help her. Just like you.”
… … …
Fiend territory:
Brian pressed his back against the wall and slowly swung his
head to the left, facing the way he had come, squinting and opening his eyes,
trying to make out his surroundings. Only a dim silhouette of another
half-crumbled building stood out from the darkened sky. He turned back to the right,
peering ahead in the same way, but there was nothing visible at all.
“Ready to meet the Unity?”
It was not his own internal voice,
not even the strange new voice that sometimes shouted from inside his head.
This voice had definitely been spoken. Brian had felt the breath on his left
ear.
Thanks for having me on your site, Cindy. I'm so sorry I missed it. I have no excuse; I just didn't get it into my calendar right.
ReplyDeleteHopefully this good news makes up for my absence. Right now, "The Book of Eadie" is up for free right now on NetGalley. All you have to do is promise to post a review. I'll post the link at the bottom of this message.
Note that although I'm signed in here with a Google account, I don't use that one very often. You can find me at my website ArmyOfTheDoomed.com or on Facebook:
Personal Page: https://www.facebook.com/dark.mark.diehl
Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/Mark-D-Diehl-195906077112873/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
https://www.netgalley.com/widget/142807/redeem/f5aa4d43a694a5fc283be9c51fa809f1be7bc6245ae6a73f06db0d0ce25280fb