Alternative Worlds
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Steel Sky
Andrew E. Murphy
per Aspera, May 2006, $24.95
ISBN 0974573450
After a series of global catastrophes, the Founders built the Hypogeum a city two kilometers underground. After almost over four centuries, it is vastly overcrowded, a quarter to a million people live in a place designed for fifty thousand. There are fourteen levels, and the higher the class designation a person is assigned the closer they live to the top of the city. The inhabitants have no idea there is a surface where people once lived or a real sun and moon.
The air outside the buildings of the Hypogeum is poisonous due to the toxic waste produced on the lower levels. People need respirators to breathe once they leave a building and the whole city is ruled by the corrupt Orcus whose heir Second Son is a weak bully and a sexual predator. The people are controlled by Orcus using a technology that only his family knows about. A feeling of hopelessness pervades the city until the mythical Winnower returns killing corrupt officials and giving hope to people who need a champion. He has no idea that his appearance will signal the destruction of civilization as he knows it.
STEEL SKY is an imaginative work that draws the reader into the exciting, character driven storyline and keeps them there until they reach the end of the tale. The Hypogeum is a bleak place where euthanasia for the sick or destitute is mandatory and the human body is recycled for various needs of the city. It is an intricately detailed world that the readers can see in the mind’s eye, a place that makes an impoverished war torn nation seem like paradise. Andrew C. Murphy is a gifted storyteller who creates characters that are a microcosm of humanity.
Andrew E. Murphy
per Aspera, May 2006, $24.95
ISBN 0974573450
After a series of global catastrophes, the Founders built the Hypogeum a city two kilometers underground. After almost over four centuries, it is vastly overcrowded, a quarter to a million people live in a place designed for fifty thousand. There are fourteen levels, and the higher the class designation a person is assigned the closer they live to the top of the city. The inhabitants have no idea there is a surface where people once lived or a real sun and moon.
The air outside the buildings of the Hypogeum is poisonous due to the toxic waste produced on the lower levels. People need respirators to breathe once they leave a building and the whole city is ruled by the corrupt Orcus whose heir Second Son is a weak bully and a sexual predator. The people are controlled by Orcus using a technology that only his family knows about. A feeling of hopelessness pervades the city until the mythical Winnower returns killing corrupt officials and giving hope to people who need a champion. He has no idea that his appearance will signal the destruction of civilization as he knows it.
STEEL SKY is an imaginative work that draws the reader into the exciting, character driven storyline and keeps them there until they reach the end of the tale. The Hypogeum is a bleak place where euthanasia for the sick or destitute is mandatory and the human body is recycled for various needs of the city. It is an intricately detailed world that the readers can see in the mind’s eye, a place that makes an impoverished war torn nation seem like paradise. Andrew C. Murphy is a gifted storyteller who creates characters that are a microcosm of humanity.
