An Excerpt From My Novel

 

Although I’ve made big sacrifices to attain it, I am grateful for the time I’ve had to work on my novel.  The title is A Future of Angels.   

It’s an epic sci fi, which means it is quite long, about 650 pages.  And yet it is full of new ideas in philosophy, psychology, and science.  There are two worlds.  Two very different futures for humanity.  Nothing less than reality and self-identity are at stake.

I believe this book is worthy as a cultural conversation piece.  Why?  Because we live in a time when humanity could wipe itself out, or create a paradise on Earth.  As technology accelerates, the time approaches faster.

What it comes down to is this:  how we handle our increasing tech.  Not just military and power tech.  Just as important, more important, is our ethics tech.

One reason my novel is timely is that most people today don’t even realize that ethics is a technology, capable of advanced and lesser configurations and effects.

One of the two worlds in my novel suggests that paradise is possible.  The other shows that hell is possible.

I doubt this novel will ever be mass-published.  Publisher and agents don’t like to take chances on first-time novelists, especially with a major project. 

I will keep on trying, though, even as I sketch plans for my next novel.  Perseverance is my best chance.  This is a quest for me, my part in promoting the Good (a concept not owned by any single religion).

Below is an excerpt from chapter one, which takes place in a near-future setting. The protagonist reflects on a dystopic state of affairs:  most people are now accepting a specialized computer--called an Umb--as an implant in their brain.

I’m certain this is a choice we will face in the future, maybe not long from now.  In the novel, I explore this option in detail.  I also explore the idea of angels, and how we could make them real--or not.

And on and on.  I created two new worlds, with their own tech, mythologies, cultures and fates.

There’s also a great love story in the novel, and plenty of action, all written in a literary style.

If you know a fiction agent who might be interested, I’ll send them a query.  I need any connection or help I can get, as I continue my journey.

Feel free to contact me even years from now.  I don’t foresee a quick path out of the proverbial desert.

 

owlwholaughs@gmail.com

 

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Excerpt from Chapter One of A Future of Angels

 

...

Most kids bought their first Umb at the age of fifteen, the legal minimum.  Back when she was in school, it had been sixteen.  She had decided to wait an extra year, and the delay cost her social status and friends.  Even so, she had considered staying a pureflesh.  No mindware.  Mentally free.  The modeling and acting gigs could pay well, at least for a while. 

A few years out of high school, though, most pureflesh slid down the social ladder.  The first step was sexware and porn shoots.  After that, you became a collar, a trophy, a sex pet.  Poverty wasn’t as alluring as selling your mental leash to the whims of a sadistic noble.

At age thirteen, barely an adolescent, she’d had offers of free sexware.  High quality mindlynx worth tens of thousands of dens.  The man who solicited her had committed two major crimes:  recruiting a minor for prostitution and enslavement by mindware.  She hadn’t gone for it, thankfully.  Even at that age, she could see the degradation and sin. 

Trajan took my freedom.

Even in adults who ‘choose’ the lifestyle, everyone could see the real price.  Sex pets sitting in the passenger seats of plush glide cars, offering coy glimpses of banded crotches under stroke skirts or clutch jeans.  But what those smooth, perched thighs really meant was that some Duke or Duchess could push a button and make another human being beg to cum.

I’m not a sex pet.  Just meat turned into a weapon.

... 

  

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