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A World Without Divide: The Night Sarah Came Home
THIS IS HOW OUR WORLD WILL END: Nobody from the old world was supposed to survive following a cataclysmic event that destroyed the vast majority of Earth's population in year 2032. Behind this merciless destruction was a multi-national, governmental social-conditioning experiment called the "Utopia Project" whose leaders intend to re-populate and inhabit Earth with perfectly-conditioned members of their utopian society. When leaders of the Utopia Project discover that a small number of individuals has managed to survive the cataclysm, they are determined to eradicate them along with all remaining vestiges of the old world culture. These survivors hang by a thread as they face horrific tragedies, relentless pursuit, intense confrontations and even their own deep feelings for each other within the group. Mysteries surrounding the limited areas of the world left unscathed start to unravel. Through it all, the struggle intensifies as the survivors come to realize that what is at stake is not just their own lives, but the fate of humanity itself. ABOUT THE AUTHOR William Joseph spent the first eighteen years of his life growing up on the New Jersey shore. After high school, his life took him on a path through South Carolina, Louisiana and finally back home to Ocean County, New Jersey, where he currently resides. This geographic area (the part of New Jersey not enough people really see), with the splendor of the Atlantic Ocean, Barnegat Bay and the forests of the Pinelands National Reserve, serves as the primary backdrop for this first book in a series. A school administrator by profession, the author still remains an avid reader and writer. Joseph also enjoys outdoor recreation, songwriting, guitar playing, sports and the soul-soothing ambiance of the sea (especially when the beach and boardwalk are deserted).
312 pages, Paperback
First published November 27, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 10, 2009
A World Without Divide is an apocalyptic trilogy detailing the “fate of the earth, humanity and society as we know it.” A handful of survivors from a devastating neutron wave are pitted against a clandestine, multi-national totalitarian society, reminiscent of those in Huxley’s Animal Farm and Orwell’s 1984. The utopian society plans to repopulate the world with “conditioned” people.
Book One of the trilogy, The Night Sarah Came Home, begins the day after Christmas, 2032, with three young couples on a New Jersey beach enjoying the warmth of a campfire under an ocean-front pier.
Kid and Sarah, Heidi and Brian, and Jess and Maria, have their attention focused on fleeing the rising surf in advance of a winter storm when they are temporarily blinded by streaming waves of red bands of lights from the sky above.
They learn, bit by bit, that they are among a handful of survivors in the whole world from a satellite-launched, neutron wave device that kills humans but leaves buildings and infrastructure untouched. The attack was activated by a secret, utopian society that had its beginnings nearly twenty years before and now lives on three huge, self-contained “Project Utopia” ships stationed off the coast of Greenland.
The society’s goal of eliminating the stress of individual egos and competitive instincts is to be realized by “conditioning” infants who have been born into the society. At birth, they are removed from their mothers for daily sessions of shock and neurological seizures triggered and ended by code words uttered by members of the leadership, called “Elders.” When the child makes progress toward behavior goals, the “conditioning” backs off.
The ships approach the New Jersey coast to eliminate those few who survived due to a satellite malfunction. Soldiers come ashore, kill Brian and capture the girls while Kid and Jess are scouting the town for clues to what happened. All they find are former humans melted down into mounds of stench-emitting piles of gook with skulls and eyes grotesquely protruding from the surface.
Kid and Jess, in a series of violent and risky actions, secretly board the ships and rescue the girls from the initial phases of their “conditioning” program prior to their participation in group “intimacy activity” periods, designed to impregnate females for the purpose of increasing the society’s membership. The society plans to replace existing humans with conditioned ones, so growth is vital to their success.
We learn that Sarah, at her birth twenty years before, was scheduled to participate in a government experimental “conditioning” program. Once taken from her mother’s arms, her distraught mother fell four stories to her violent death. Her mother’s martyrdom drove the utopian movement underground and offshore.
Sarah’s father, General Hyland, a member of the military division conducting the experiments, made a vow to watch over the rest of her life the night she was returned to him after the death of her mother, hence the title—The Night Sarah Came Home.
Book One concludes with the survivors hidden in a remote hunting cabin plotting their next move. One of the girls dies of wounds she received during the rescue. Returning to town, Kid and the others locate the General’s diary and read the last entry in which he promises help, telling Sarah that he is stationed on one of the Project Utopia ships and that she should contact him by walkie-talkie . . . we must await the release of Book Two to learn more.
The author tells the story from the point of view of the main characters—there are no presidential meetings, U.N. sessions, or other high-level actions. The rescue tactics and violent encounters are described in great detail. Maritime equipment descriptions are especially true to life. The action takes place on the New Jersey coast near Lakehurst and the author calls upon his knowledge of the area to make the locations real.
This suspenseful book is recommended to those who have an interest in clashes between cultures and the philosophical issues raised by their differences in values and beliefs.
Book One of the trilogy, The Night Sarah Came Home, begins the day after Christmas, 2032, with three young couples on a New Jersey beach enjoying the warmth of a campfire under an ocean-front pier.
Kid and Sarah, Heidi and Brian, and Jess and Maria, have their attention focused on fleeing the rising surf in advance of a winter storm when they are temporarily blinded by streaming waves of red bands of lights from the sky above.
They learn, bit by bit, that they are among a handful of survivors in the whole world from a satellite-launched, neutron wave device that kills humans but leaves buildings and infrastructure untouched. The attack was activated by a secret, utopian society that had its beginnings nearly twenty years before and now lives on three huge, self-contained “Project Utopia” ships stationed off the coast of Greenland.
The society’s goal of eliminating the stress of individual egos and competitive instincts is to be realized by “conditioning” infants who have been born into the society. At birth, they are removed from their mothers for daily sessions of shock and neurological seizures triggered and ended by code words uttered by members of the leadership, called “Elders.” When the child makes progress toward behavior goals, the “conditioning” backs off.
The ships approach the New Jersey coast to eliminate those few who survived due to a satellite malfunction. Soldiers come ashore, kill Brian and capture the girls while Kid and Jess are scouting the town for clues to what happened. All they find are former humans melted down into mounds of stench-emitting piles of gook with skulls and eyes grotesquely protruding from the surface.
Kid and Jess, in a series of violent and risky actions, secretly board the ships and rescue the girls from the initial phases of their “conditioning” program prior to their participation in group “intimacy activity” periods, designed to impregnate females for the purpose of increasing the society’s membership. The society plans to replace existing humans with conditioned ones, so growth is vital to their success.
We learn that Sarah, at her birth twenty years before, was scheduled to participate in a government experimental “conditioning” program. Once taken from her mother’s arms, her distraught mother fell four stories to her violent death. Her mother’s martyrdom drove the utopian movement underground and offshore.
Sarah’s father, General Hyland, a member of the military division conducting the experiments, made a vow to watch over the rest of her life the night she was returned to him after the death of her mother, hence the title—The Night Sarah Came Home.
Book One concludes with the survivors hidden in a remote hunting cabin plotting their next move. One of the girls dies of wounds she received during the rescue. Returning to town, Kid and the others locate the General’s diary and read the last entry in which he promises help, telling Sarah that he is stationed on one of the Project Utopia ships and that she should contact him by walkie-talkie . . . we must await the release of Book Two to learn more.
The author tells the story from the point of view of the main characters—there are no presidential meetings, U.N. sessions, or other high-level actions. The rescue tactics and violent encounters are described in great detail. Maritime equipment descriptions are especially true to life. The action takes place on the New Jersey coast near Lakehurst and the author calls upon his knowledge of the area to make the locations real.
This suspenseful book is recommended to those who have an interest in clashes between cultures and the philosophical issues raised by their differences in values and beliefs.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2013
I just finished, AWWD: A World Without Divide by William Joseph
I agree with you that teens (maybe 12th grade) will enjoy this book on many levels. The sci-fi theme will be enjoyed, and this book is full of action, drama, and movement. This was exciting to read with never a dull moment. Some violence, but it goes along with the theme of this material. The first page says it is a trilogy, so I will have to read the rest of this series.
A must read!
I agree with you that teens (maybe 12th grade) will enjoy this book on many levels. The sci-fi theme will be enjoyed, and this book is full of action, drama, and movement. This was exciting to read with never a dull moment. Some violence, but it goes along with the theme of this material. The first page says it is a trilogy, so I will have to read the rest of this series.
A must read!
Read
April 20, 2009It is well written, very depressing, but griping for those who like their fictions well grounded in real details.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews