...QUANTUM ROLODEX...

Improvidence

---

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 paradoxically feels closer to the brutal past than to our present time. This disquieting setting, split between modern environmental catastrophe and antiquated tribal warfare, reveals the cyclical nature of civilization and the horrific world-shaping power of technology.

The story manages to build suspense and atmosphere while maintaining an adventurous cadence, further elevated by Herod's efficient and impactful use of descriptive language. The world described by 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 totalizing civilizations, and that our present moment of safety and sterile loneliness is merely one valley in the landscape of history.