...QUANTUM ROLODEX...

Improvidence

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Author's Blurb:

The apocalypse has passed and new peoples rise from the ashes. Among them is a young engineer, newly enlisted in an army with plans to reclaim what has been lost. His mission: deep reconnaissance into the lost wilds of West Virginia.

But the world is twisted beyond recognition. To reclaim the abandoned fort necessary to impose order on this lawless frontier he must overcome both the scars of the old world and the savagery of the tribal men who now inhabit it.

Improvidence is a dark adventure into the horrific unknown. It is a story about greed, lust, and the creeping certainty of change—and the way our minds grapple with our own transformation.

Nominator's Pitch:

Improvidence is a glimpse into a distant future--one that somehow feels closer to our brutal past than our present time. A disquieting setting, split between environmental catastrophe and ancient tribal warfare, reveals the cycle of empires and the world-eating power of technology.

Herod builds suspense and atmosphere while maintaining an adventurous pace, further elevated by his vivdly descriptive language. The world of our protagonist is surreal and corrupted, but in ways which feel uncomfortably realistic. It is both bleak and hopeful, alien and familiar, and eerily strange.

Improvidence reminds us that human forces of good and evil will outlast even the most vast civilizations, and that our present moment of safety and sterile loneliness is merely a valley in the landscape of history. - VT52