Silent Consent

by Circa24

Since the end of the carbon era and the collapse of the old empire, the Founder States have used the draconian demotions proposed by Rene Strongbow and Lucrecia Tarquin to punish energy crimes and nepotism. Humans, being what they are, corrupted the system meant to end corruption. As a result, a society that has modeled itself on a warped sense of classical pride, one that preaches that the convicts deserve whatever they get, has begun to implode. Silent Consent looks not at a technologically advanced future for which we may hope. Instead, it foresees what could happen if we don’t conserve resources for our descendants. It gives a raw vision of a world where our descendants live within our legacy of pollution, greed, and waste.

426 pages, Hardcover

Published October 6, 2022

About the author

Circa24 is a professor of Biology. She received a Doctorate in Zoology from The University of Toronto. For many years, she has taught classes on environmental biology and animal behavior. She has spoken at international conferences on the biological roots of cruelty, discrimination, and greed. She uses the pen name Circa24 to distinguish her creative writing from her technical and non-fiction works. Author’s comment: “Hey, if a pseudonym is good enough for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Mary Ann Evans, and Samuel Clements, then it’s good enough for me.”.

Reviews

[Marijo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the dystopian world. The book asks, "What happens when we run out of the cheap fossil fuel that powers our economy?" By looking back at history and pairing it with a degraded environment, the author produces a chilling scenario of a caste-based society where enslavement rears its ugly head, ignored or accepted by the masses. Not preachy, but the dehumanizing aspects of slavery are addressed. Great for adult readers, but not appropriate for younger ones. The writer calls upon the history of servitude and slavery from the Roman era through the Holocaust. As Margaret Atwood did in The Handmaid's Tale, Circa24 calls upon incidents and traditions to sculpt the degradation in this future world.

[Moneen M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll admit when I first started reading the book and saw the words 'head job', I was thinking it was going to be a bit perverse. Then the details of the rituals for the future law enforcement personnel made themselves clear. This novel will not only shock you with the socio-economics of the United States following a carbon-era energy crises, but you learn the psychological changes in human behaviors. The characters are complex, and right when you think you know what is going to happen the author surprises you.

The main characters range from the super privileged to the lowest of the low, the 'nameless'. You learn what shaped their personalities and spend some time in their shoes as you learn their successes and failures. You may not always agree with or even like an individual in the book, but you will learn to understand what drives them.

Repetitive themes of energy crimes and punishment make you wonder whether or not humans are innately cruel or sadist, or if their life experiences molded each generation a bit further from their empathetic ancestors. However, not to sound entirely depressive, there are still the 'good guys' that fight the ever-present mean monsters.

The book really makes you self-reflect on climate change, the reduction in natural energy reserves, and what exactly is the worth of a human being?