Requirements: .ePUB reader, 1.1 MB
Overview: Mick Mooney is a life-long student of storytelling and human nature. His books are both entertaining and insightful that tackle big themes in unique ways. He lives in Australia, where he is determined to one day live in the woods free from all technology and go by the name Wilderness Man. For the time being, he lives in the country with his wife and two children.
Genre: Fiction > Sci-Fi/Fantasy Dystopian
Progress Above All (#1)
If perception is reality, then the City was perfection realised. What the citizens saw through their own augmented eyes was a version of reality that was nothing short of awe-inspiring—a modern utopia.
Perception was the key. It did not matter what was, only what was perceived.
It was hard to fathom that hundreds of countries and billions of people lived on the planet less than half a century prior. Currently, this was akin to an ancient fairytale within the City. Nobody questioned its historical fact, nor did they try to understand it. It was a sign of impending personal disgrace to reflect on the past, so self-censorship of all such thoughts was the duty of all citizens.
All that mattered was the future. Always look to the future! How the world was before was irrelevant in contrast to what it became. Whatever had been before the establishment of the City was now considered an unfortunate stain on the inside of humanity’s now majestic robe. If the past was one of endless fractions, wastage, and ignorance, then the future was unity, preciseness, and technological enlightenment. The present mattered because it was constantly ushering in the future. The future, that moment beyond, was the all-in-all.
The fact that life could have existed any other way was considered more like a fable—like Santa Claus, or Jesus Christ, or Abraham Lincoln. It was a purely ludicrous account of modern history to most citizens. How could that be true of the past, billions of people, hundreds of nations, millions of cities, when now there was only one nation, one City, one citizenship?
The City was Earth’s singular centre for humanity, a perfect and proud testimony to the euphoric climax of technology and humankind integrating fully.
Then there were the interplanetary explorations, the Missions. According to official records, tens of millions of citizens were active in Missions. To be invited to join the Space Program was the highest aspiration of all citizens. It was all voluntary, but in the program’s history, no one had ever declined such an invitation. It was proof of the citizens’ devotion to the City’s simple yet profound mantra: PROGRESS ABOVE ALL.
But for Joy, the lead Architect of the City, there was more she wanted to understand. The original vision for a technologically enhanced human experience had been achieved (practically all citizens volunteered to regularly replace their biology with technology, called ‘getting a pinch’), but what did it mean for humanity? How much further could they push, how much more could be pinched, before the citizens completely lost connection with their humanity?
To learn the answer to this question (and several other hidden agendas), Joy created a Research Project to take a citizen from the City and set him up in the wild, far beyond the City walls. She chose Newt, a seventeen-year-old, for the program. But does he want to go? Could he survive without technology and left to contend directly with nature and reality? Newt faces a dramatic moment of decision, and how he responds will have permanent consequences.
Joy also faces opposing powerful forces simultaneously, including the newest Architect to ascend to the Joint Union. Abby Sinclair is young and fiercely determined to fulfil her vision for all humanity, including completely eliminating death. But for what reason? And how could Abby be trusted with such an absolute technological advancement? How could anyone be trusted, even Joy?
Surviving The Wild (#2)
In the modern world—where there was only one City, one citizenship, and one ethos to live by—it was natural that all citizens despised the notion of a world with billions of people, millions of cities, and a vast diversity of beliefs.
The City had successfully consolidated all into one. It was designed in such a technologically addictive and convenient way that the citizens did not consider the idea of any alternative ever existing on Earth. Why would they when their perception of the City was perfection?
No documents ever mentioned the outside natural world. No entertainment programs referenced it. No news updates reported on it. No conversation ever referenced it.
Regardless of the medium, the outside world was never discussed.
As far as the citizens were concerned, there was the City that towered high in its perpetual greatness. Then there was the Space Program, the even higher and greater beyond.
These were the only two realities that existed in the minds of the citizens. Everything else, every other possible square metre of the Earth they lived on, did not exist in their perception. If ever the thought came up, the universal way to deal with such a moment was to order their brain-chip to do its most requested task: “Delete, delete, delete!”
So what was Newt to do now that he was forced to leave? All complexity and technology were being left behind. Moving forward, he had one singular, impossible, and terrifying task: SURVIVING THE WILD.
Download Instructions:
https://ouo.io/duWrO3
https://ouo.io/1ahOq9.
