Book 3: Progeny, by Wendy MacGown, is now available in e-book and print format from all booksellers.
Continue the journey with the Murphy/ Martinez clan as they struggle against the Separation, a dystopian social construct of the 2300’s that resulted from the Dark Times of 2056.
What’s the Separation?
In 2056, five greedy families gutted Social Security in the US, precipitating a worldwide stock market collapse and mass starvation. The Chinese government took over. In a few generations, the few willing to bear and raise children wanted no interference from elders. A habitat was set aside for them in the Shanghai Sphere called the Project for Progeny (Pro-Prog), where humans mated to strengthen the diminishing gene pool.
Imagine living in spheres on a polluted planet, connected via transportation pods that shoot between them. Imagine growing up with one spoken language, where dominant genes are favored. Imagine being forced at eighteen to choose between mating in Pro-Prog or exile to the Real World, cutting off ties with family. Imagine leaving the only home you’ve ever known when your youngest child comes of age.
It’s a world of lies. In Pro-Prog, medical care and infrastructure maintenance suffers as parents age-out, taking their skills with them. Real World authorities push quench, an addictive depression med with terrible side-effects.
What About those books?
- Book 1: The Separation – Scientist and Pagan High Priestess, Franny Murphy leaves Pro-Prog when Jane, her youngest child turns 18. Weaned from quench and living with her lover, Matt, Franny studies the drug in hopes of an alternative. Her uncle, the High Council President, grooms her as his successor. When he considers her enemy as a candidate, she pods to the Moon colony hospice with Matt, now terminally ill. Granted the right of all-access, she breaches the Separation to plead for change as Athena, the voice of the Resistance.
- Book 2: Resistance – Administrator Jane Murphy is exiled from Pro-Prog when her sole child, Leah turns eighteen. Rendered infertile by a birthing accident, she devises an edict to remove “unfit” children from the gene pool. While her Aunt Grace plays with destruction, her mother plots with imprisoned teens to kidnap Jane, the Administrator who’d incarcerated them. Jane’s escape to the polluted Outside changes everything. She joins her mother and the teens to end the Separation, with devastating consequences.
Book 3: Progeny – Party-boy Austin Martinez, Franny’s only son, has been chipped—sent into testosterone overdrive as part of Aunt Grace’s twisted population program. As president of the High Council, he opens pod access between habitats. His timing couldn’t be worse. A family enemy uploaded a pod worm that stalls pods, asphyxiating occupants, and the military rejects Austin’s rule. Allies remove his chip, but it’s too late. Faced with diminished reasoning abilities, he abdicates his role with a plan to save the Earth.
