Eusebio's Tale: Book One of the Way of Deep Time Series

by Carmen Clarke

2165, Peru. Twenty-nine-year-old Eusebio is a failure. He lacks assets, has little power, and only the barest whiff of status. At least, that’s what the Algorithm says, and it must be right, given it evaluates and controls most of the known world. It’s only in the virtual realm that Eusebio can pretend to be someone else and forget his shame and dread.

But even that quiet peace is disturbed by the appearance of a stranger who confronts Eusebio with a warning he cannot Will he spend the rest of his life caught in the agony of paralysis, or finally find the courage to save himself?
Eusebio faces daunting challenges as he escapes to the Non-Participating Territories, learns he has a special ability, and joins in the moment of discovery when two wildly different societies become aware of each other. The Deep Timers and the Storks need to work together to protect their worlds from annihilation. Can Eusebio be the human link between them?
The answer awaits in worlds beyond Eusebio’s imagination, and ways of being that stretch into the distant past. But before he can learn the Way of Deep Time, he will find himself drawn into a war against an enemy that would obliterate reality itself. Freedom is within grasp, but only if he joins the fight to save it.
Eusebio’s Tale is the first bold instalment of the Way of Deep Time series, a prescient exploration of the intersection between humanity, nature, and technology.

325 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 15, 2024

Reviews

[E Baron · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book from start to finish. It's a thoughtful, well-put-together novel that extrapolates into the future what might happen if modern social goods of power, assets, and status were to become institutionalized and made into an ideology, with assistance of computers. Author Carmen Clarke understands that a powerful Algorithm that purports to manage these things for all persons in the end cannot account for those who don't --and can't-- participate. As the controlled society decays, the story begins with one hapless Peruvian youth who will soon arrive in the Drift of losers. How Eusebio is "summoned" to a place where the computers can't get into his head, where people communicate with horses and dogs, is told in a lively and engaging style. The author keeps good control of a complicated plot that involves the machinations of those who would purge Eusebio and his kind.
I particularly liked the author's knowledge of South America and Armenia, where the story takes place. She has clearly visited a number of the locales, and her use of colloquial Spanish is a treat.
She has just the right touch of humor. She creates many memorable descriptions -- and I'm one who has limited patience with description because I want to get back to the plot.
I liked the characters: the author doesn't try to use them to seduce us or make them heroes. There is no gratuitous sex. The sympathetic ones have a lot of dignity and self-awareness. The bad guys are plausibly human, even the human-computer hybrids, that have turned to doing bad things because they want something that we can understand. The exchanges with the dogs and the horses are truly appealing and one the book's highlights. I don't like dogs -- this book made me want to befriend one.
The author has her science down. She has a particularly sophisticated sense of what translation between languages and cognitions means and could mean, and shares this view with us in a way
that resonates. Importantly, she does not get caught up in polemics and ideological departures. She describes this future world and lets us take our lessons therefrom.
I can't wait for the second volume to arrive!

[Omnireader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed Eusebio's Tale, a novel that brilliantly combines ideas and action. Set against the backdrop of Lima in the 2100s, the story introduces us to Eusebio, a reluctant hero who, as Campbell would say, embarks on a transformative journey. A journey that will transform him and, most likely, the algorithmically controlled society he inhabits. In this future, the algorithm has succeeded in quantifying human value by deciphering the connections between wealth, power, and status, presenting a world in which a person's worth can finally be calculated...and used.

I don't want to go into too many details, because this is a work of many layers and surprises, with plot twists and surprising action scenes involving unlikely protagonists. I know I am being cryptic…but you will thank me when you get to read it.

The novel is rich with intriguing concepts, one of which is biosemiotics and humans' long-lost prehistoric superpowers. Another fascinating idea explores how charisma and dominance can be modulated by a special group of enhanced humans. Their complex choreography — not the book itself, but the institution it describes — is reminiscent of Asimov's Second Foundation. And in an apt jab at our contemporary influencer milieu, Clarke explains how to define coolness algorithmically. This is a terrific read that envisions a plausible future in which all is not lost.