Morituri

by A.D. Bloom

Since the late 21st century, global government criminalized religion, Father Patrick Doogan has been hiding from the Security Services in the lion's den – pleasure-driven Baccha Bay City, California. When he's kidnapped by the Morituri, first-world Catholic insurgents fighting the Global Secular Alliance, he's forced out of retreat and must choose a side that stains his soul. Morituri is an action-packed, novelette-length, short story thriller filled with guns, bombs, and killer drones from the author of The War of Alien Aggression, also available on Kindle.

25 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 3, 2011

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting premise but I found the characters dull and uninspiring. Definitely didn’t hook me. all in all a disappointment.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best thing about this short story was the world-building, which is probably the goal since it was written with the purpose of getting people interested in the author's novels. So as far as an advertisement goes, it did its job pretty well, starting to describe a future world where religion has been outlawed, and also starting to introduce some of the underground religious and resistance movements that result. As I started reading, I was excited as it had a lot of potential for a really interesting story.

Unfortunately, the story itself wasn't particularly great in my opinion. I felt like there was much more conflict than there was justification or backstory for. That could be simply attributed to the fact that it's a short story, but it didn't do enough to involve me to root for either of the main characters, so I found myself rather apathetic.

Then suddenly it ended in a completely unexpected way. Unfortunately, it wasn't the good kind of unexpected, it was the contrived kind where there was no indication at all earlier in the story that this is a possibility to happen, much less any hint that anything of the sort will happen when suddenly it does. And then the story's over. The end.

That's super vague, but if you're interested just read it. It's free (or at least was whenever I downloaded it; I don't remember when that was) and a quick read. And as far as it convincing me to buy the rest of the series, well, if I had only read the first fifth or so, it's not unlikely that I would have been interested enough in the world and conflict outlined to read more by the author in this universe. However, as I finished the story I really lost interest and found myself not really caring about the story and thus not particularly interested in reading more.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic companion story to Bring Me the Head of the Buddha. Dystopian society in which religion has been criminalized. A man of the cloth must make a choice that will haunt him as well as surprise the reader.

A.D. Bloom is the author of the new military scifi series, The War of Alien Aggression. http://thewarofalienaggression.wordpr...

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Free short story.
The Global Secular Alliance has taken over the world, destroying the Vatican, Jerusalem, and Mecca in the process. Religion is outlawed and consumerism is king.
Of course, there is resistance.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as part of the Kindle All-Stars Presents: Resistance Front anthology. It's a terrific story that makes you think and the rest of the anthology is just as good.