The Post-Apocalyptic “Information Age” in THE OPHELIA PROPHECY by @SharonFisher #sfrb
Please welcome another of my favorite authors to the blog. Sharon Lynn Fisher has two science fiction romance books published with TOR books. I’ve read and loved them both. They’re books I will never part with. I want to read them over and over. And if they come to the big screen *fingers crossed*, I’ll be first in line to see them.
The Post-Apocalyptic “Information Age”
in THE OPHELIA PROPHECY
Guest post by author Sharon Lynn Fisher
Someone recently suggested in an interview that the importance of information to the humans in my post-apocalyptic biopunk romance, THE OPHELIA PROPHECY, was an amplification of our relationship with information in the digital age. The interviewer was correct in surmising that was what had inspired me to incorporate this element into the story, and I find the topic so interesting I thought it might make a good guest post. (Thanks for having me, Jessica!).
For those who haven’t read the book, the heroine’s city, Sanctuary, is the last outpost of humanity after a plague engineered by the Manti — a race of human/praying mantis transgenic organisms created by human scientists — wipes out almost all of the humans on the planet.
When I was writing the book, I thought about what would motivate a small pocket of humans to survive once life and society as they’d known it had ceased to exist. I could imagine one motivation would be to recover what they’d lost. And if they still had access to computers (and power to operate them), they’d do all they could to preserve information about their history and lost culture.
The “Ophelia” of THE OPHELIA PROPHECY is a scientist who predicted the downfall of humanity. Before her prediction came true, she became obsessed with collecting data. Afterward, the data was preserved in an archive by the survivors. Asha, the heroine, is one of the archivists working to sort out the mess Ophelia made as she dumped data onto drives in a frantic and haphazard fashion.
I think it’s fair to say that we digital age citizens have become information junkies. From blogs posts on topics we’re interested in to the frequent micro-updates we receive from friends and family via social media. And just like an addiction to any substance, once our relationship to information shifted from casual to obsessive, that relationship became dysfunctional. (FaceBook suddenly becomes fascinating when I’m freaking out about a deadline. I can’t sit at a traffic light without checking my email. Etc.)
I thought about how this might play out in the future, and specifically in my post-apocalyptic setting. Could an obsession with information evolve into something like a religion?
The humans in Sanctuary have devoted themselves to preservation of information about the past. The mission statement of their archive is “preserving the past for the future.” They believe if they lie low and wait for their opportunity to challenge and defeat their enemy, they can use information to resurrect the past. This is where the dysfunction comes in. By clinging to the past, they fail to move forward into their new reality. They lock themselves into a cycle of regret and unrealistic hope. I think that’s something we’ve all experienced at times in our lives.
Asha pinpoints the problem in the following passage:
The longer she spent away from Sanctuary, the more she felt sickened by their complacency. The fact they’d all survived was important, but was it enough? Quiet lives and quiet deaths. Living in a kind of stasis, focused on preserving the past. Unmolested by their enemy because they presented zero threat to them. It had begun to seem weak and pointless.
Am I suggesting information obsession is a fatal societal character flaw? No. But it’s fun to speculate about it! Now if we consider what might happen were we to suddenly lose connection to all the computers and networks that store our information … well, that’s a speculation for another day.
The Ophelia Prophecy
by Sharon Lynn Fisher
A thrilling new sci-fi romance from the author of 2013 RWA RITA finalist Ghost Planet…
Our world is no longer our own. We engineered a race of superior fighters — the Manti, mutant humans with insect-like abilities. Twenty-five years ago they all but destroyed us. In Sanctuary, some of us survive. Eking out our existence. Clinging to the past.
Some of us intend to do more than survive.
Asha and Pax — strangers and enemies — find themselves stranded together on the border of the last human city, neither with a memory of how they got there.
Asha is an archivist working to preserve humanity’s most valuable resource — information — viewed as the only means of resurrecting their society.
Pax is Manti, his Scarab ship a menacing presence in the skies over Sanctuary, keeping the last dregs of humanity in check.
Neither of them is really what they seem, and what humanity believes about the Manti is a lie.
With their hearts and fates on a collision course, they must unlock each other’s secrets and forge a bond of trust before a rekindled conflict pushes their two races into repeating the mistakes of the past.
AVAILABLE FROM
Amazon US | Amazon Canada | Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository
A Romance Writers of America RITA Award finalist and a three-time RWA Golden Heart Award finalist, SHARON LYNN FISHER lives in the Pacific Northwest. She writes books for the geeky at heart—sci-fi flavored stories full of adventure and romance—and battles writerly angst with baked goods, Irish tea, and champagne. Her works include Ghost Planet (2012), The Ophelia Prophecy (2014), and Echo 8 (2014). You can visit her online at SharonLynnFisher.com.
