Quite some time ago, I had to set some priorities because of the volume of requests I receive. e-books lower than paperback. Well, this book is an example of what I've missed for doing that, even if I still need to use it as a guideline. This book, my friends who enjoy SciFi, is....waaaaay cool and I'm sorry I didn't get to it before this...
Sex War One
By Hillel F. Damron
Also by Damron Very Narrow Bridge
And Review of Unidentified Woman
D.L. (all individuals are only known by two initials which have been assigned), the head of the birthing room as well as the council had made a decision at that time. He had saved her and isolated her to ensure her safety...
I first read Unidentified Woman by Damron several years ago and then went back to read Very Narrow Bridge which immediately made me a fan of this wonderful author. Now he takes us into science fiction/fantasy of the future that hits readers right from today's world! You see, by the time the world is destroyed by nuclear bombs, there had been recognition of what had occurred on earth... Everything had become so sexualized that it was the driving force of any and every relationship...
Sooooo, why not make it the primary component of the world of the future?
After all, people didn't connect love with sex anymore. They did it with anybody and everybody... but, hey, they really didn't want the possible consequences of having a child--you know, about whom you then have to go on TV to seek help finding out who the father is in order to pay for support...
Or just turn the child over to your parents to raise since you're too busy out having sex every night...
Or having your child taken from you because you're on drugs...
Ok, I'll quit explaining some of the reasons that by the time the surface of our world has been destroyed, there were some very hard decisions made by, no doubt, scientific professionals who could project the future and create the mechanical processes by which the human race would survive... especially the birthing machine...
Enter the underground life module of what may very well be the last humans on earth. There are just 40 men and women, plus children who are produced on schedule by a birthing machine process. Also plus the elderly who are sent away from the main functioning area, to wait until they die...
All the residents are genetically created to be similar in looks, though the women have been permitted small breasts... I don't know about you, but 20 Brad Pitts would be too much for me, especially when the 20 female versions are "almost" similar! There is no reason for comparison, jealousy, since all are equal in all ways and the group is governed by discussion and voting.
They use pleasure machines and are no longer addicted to the sexuality that had help to ruin the world. Since it was now anything and anybody goes, sexually, the bodies' drives are well attended to, while the pleasure machines are used to obtain/drain out necessary bodily fluids from which the birthing machine takes over, analyzing and selecting the best options for the next group of children to be born... There are no known fathers or mothers...the children belong to everybody, and are raised by assigned caretakers...
And then one day the infallible birthing machine allowed a "merge" that resulted in someone "different..." Many called her Monster and wanted her destroyed...
D.L. (all individuals are only known by two initials which have been assigned), the head of the birthing room as well as the council had made a decision at that time. He had saved her and isolated her to ensure her safety...
D.L. halted in the far corner of the yard, in front of a transparent plastic fence. Inside he saw the small, lone shack he had designed and built. He entered the secret combination on the electronic panel by the fence’s gate, known only to him, and it slid open for him. He stepped inside and was just about to turn the light on when he thought the better of it. She was asleep, he realized. And in any case, the light would work against him now. The darkness, he hoped, would work for him.
He sat down on the small but sturdy toy-box he had built for her. She was sleeping peacefully, his Z.Z., lying on the air mattress by the toy-box. She was wearing her thick, crude one-piece nylon dress, the one she almost never took off, other than on those rare occasions when she went to the swimming pool – under D.L.'s supervision only, and when the other colony kids were not around – to wash her body.
Her breathing was quiet and rhythmic. Her black hair was spread like a fan around her head, as if meant to protect her from bad dreams.
He watched her quietly and remembered. He remembered how the Birth-Machine had spewed her out into the test tubes, together with the other embryos that had been ordered that year. He remembered how the unusual embryonic-compound had caught the attention of the lab inspectors, causing them to call on him. He remembered how he had inspected it further, and – in his position then as Head-Laboratory-Scientist – had reached the conclusion that an unwanted, usually rejected female egg had come somehow to an undetected, undesired union with a male sperm cell. For some strange, unexplained reason, the Birth-Machine’s computer had failed to recognize the deformity of this union, and therefore had not rejected it, and had gone through with the usual, preliminary steps of matching and preserving.
Such cases were very common – the majority, in fact – a long time before D.L. had been born, before the dominant humankind, the superior colony-citizen of the present time, had been created, formulated, and fully realized.
His natural instinct, and scientific curiosity, had overcome all other notions and calculations at the time, and he had decided to let this unique embryo stay in the petri dish, and then in the test tube, to see whether it would develop properly and be capable of sustaining life. Surprisingly, it did quite well. Not only that: it matured earlier and needed only ten colony-months, not the regular twelve, before it was ready to be taken out of the Birth-Machine's incubation tank and breathe on its own. At the time, it had not caused strong objections from the other laboratory workers and scientists, and not even from the colony-citizens at large, when D.L. had decided to let the unusual newborn live...
~~~
Now Z.Z. had grown and D.L. had changed. The citizens noticed, especially one woman who had her own dreams and desires... They saw that D.L. had developed a close personal relationship with the child...some equated it to love, of a parent and/or as a lover, which was now archaic--forbidden??
N.R. had approached the council to have the Monster murdered and kept prodding until she had approval... However, when D.L. agreed to handle it, he took her up to the surface...and left her...which meant that he had no proof that he had really killed her....
K.G., D.L.'s best friend had found, as archivist, a copy of the movie, The Dictator, by Charlie Chaplin. He had noticed a difference with D.L. as well--specifically as now he spent most extra time with Z.Z. as opposed to K.G. or other members of the community. But most of all he had noticed the changes in N.R.
For one, she had fought to have D.L. removed as the council leader and she replaced him...only to start making major changes, such as, decreasing the number of male babies born while increasing the females...
It was at that time that K.G. sought out D.L. to watch The Dictator with him...
N.R. had approached the council to have the Monster murdered and kept prodding until she had approval... However, when D.L. agreed to handle it, he took her up to the surface...and left her...which meant that he had no proof that he had really killed her....
K.G., D.L.'s best friend had found, as archivist, a copy of the movie, The Dictator, by Charlie Chaplin. He had noticed a difference with D.L. as well--specifically as now he spent most extra time with Z.Z. as opposed to K.G. or other members of the community. But most of all he had noticed the changes in N.R.
For one, she had fought to have D.L. removed as the council leader and she replaced him...only to start making major changes, such as, decreasing the number of male babies born while increasing the females...
It was at that time that K.G. sought out D.L. to watch The Dictator with him...
and its effect on that small underground was forever changed...
Unfortunately, when N.R. later watched the movie, looking to her future, she didn't realize she was watching a comedy, a farce...and took all of the potential negative things shown to heart!
Soon, K.G. had been murdered... D.L. set up a secret meeting to discuss what to do...
Suddenly, one of them who had not spoken yet – H.C. was his name – asked simply:
"What is left for us to do then?"
"Fight back!" said J.D. without hesitation, looking up at him pointedly.
"No other way," reiterated D.L. "Either that, or death."
"Death… of what, of whom?" asked H.C. in alarm.
"Of all of us," said J.D.
"Of our entire sex, probably," qualified D.L.
"What do you mean by that?" asked H.C. again.
D.L. took a moment to consider, looking down at the ashes of his dead friend. They all did that, staring at it for a long moment.
"I mean this is a war now, a war for our survival. A sex war, if you will."
"A sex war?!…" exclaimed A.F.
"That's right," said D.L. "Never happened before in human history, I think."
"Sex war one, then."
"I suppose so."
"Call it what you will," J.D. intervened, a bit impatient with his friends. "All I know
is, if we don't fight back, she will destroy our way of life here in the colony and annihilate us all without any hesitation."
"Quite the opposite," suggested A.F. "If we don't fight back, she might let us live."
"And what kind of living would that be?" asked D.L. rhetorically.
Hillel F. Damron was born in Israel to parents who survived the Holocaust. He was an officer at an elite paratroops unit and was wounded in battle. He studied films at the London Film School and became a film director of TV documentaries, a feature film, and numerous video shorts. In Israel, he was an award-winning author of the Sci-fi novel, "The War of the Sexes," short stories and film reviews. Here in America he has published already two novels in the series of Gideon Gold's Investigations: "Very Narrow Bridge" and "Unidentified Woman," as well as the speculative fiction novel "Sex War One." In 2011, he won Moment Magazine's Memoir Contest with his entry, The Sweet Life, about the kibbutz in Israel where he was born.
To read a longer, more inclusive version of his bio - including detours and escapades - and explore more deeply his writing, visit his literary website: http://hillelbridge.com/
Soon, K.G. had been murdered... D.L. set up a secret meeting to discuss what to do...
Suddenly, one of them who had not spoken yet – H.C. was his name – asked simply:
"What is left for us to do then?"
"Fight back!" said J.D. without hesitation, looking up at him pointedly.
"No other way," reiterated D.L. "Either that, or death."
"Death… of what, of whom?" asked H.C. in alarm.
"Of all of us," said J.D.
"Of our entire sex, probably," qualified D.L.
"What do you mean by that?" asked H.C. again.
D.L. took a moment to consider, looking down at the ashes of his dead friend. They all did that, staring at it for a long moment.
"I mean this is a war now, a war for our survival. A sex war, if you will."
"A sex war?!…" exclaimed A.F.
"That's right," said D.L. "Never happened before in human history, I think."
"Sex war one, then."
"I suppose so."
"Call it what you will," J.D. intervened, a bit impatient with his friends. "All I know
is, if we don't fight back, she will destroy our way of life here in the colony and annihilate us all without any hesitation."
"Quite the opposite," suggested A.F. "If we don't fight back, she might let us live."
"And what kind of living would that be?" asked D.L. rhetorically.
~~~
Please note that at the end with N.R. in charge, the sexual activities/actions are extremely graphic and violent. Some could be considered laughable if N.R. wasn't so pathetic...
I consider this a definite adult book, not to be read by teenagers without guidance... Damron has created characters and a setting that forces readers directly into the daily actions of that underground world...and once it starts turning, it gets...dirty...
On the other hand, if you, too, are just as concerned as I am about teenagers and children being pulled into sexual issues far too earlier than they should be, then this is a quite an interesting book to provoke much thought.
Can we live without love, without togetherness, without families? Hillel Damron has placed sufficient emotional angst and shock value in our hands in Sex War One that is so tantalizing to today's truth (of where we are right now and why things changed in this future), that it is quite mind-blowing. Frankly I loved it! Highly recommended and perhaps even a must read for some!
GABixlerReviews
Hillel F. Damron was born in Israel to parents who survived the Holocaust. He was an officer at an elite paratroops unit and was wounded in battle. He studied films at the London Film School and became a film director of TV documentaries, a feature film, and numerous video shorts. In Israel, he was an award-winning author of the Sci-fi novel, "The War of the Sexes," short stories and film reviews. Here in America he has published already two novels in the series of Gideon Gold's Investigations: "Very Narrow Bridge" and "Unidentified Woman," as well as the speculative fiction novel "Sex War One." In 2011, he won Moment Magazine's Memoir Contest with his entry, The Sweet Life, about the kibbutz in Israel where he was born.To read a longer, more inclusive version of his bio - including detours and escapades - and explore more deeply his writing, visit his literary website: http://hillelbridge.com/
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