I’m celebrating the release of my fifth fiction book, titled Uncivil. It’s available on Amazon as a paperback or kindle edition. As an author of absolutely no renown, I think this story deserves some promotion beyond allowing it to sit quietly behind the ranks of a quarter million other books all of which seem to have been written by someone with the last name, Smith.
The story is set almost 400 years in the future on a very changed North American landscape. And while I may be pessimistic about our future in the face of a warming climate and degrading ecosystems, Uncivil is not a dystopian diatribe. The story line follows two principal characters: a hunter-forager surface-dwelling survivalist named Hodé and Anya, an anthropologist who belongs to the “Makers”, a technological subterranean population whose cities and universities are scattered across the continent, all underground. It’s an entertaining adventure through two possible future cultures, diametrically opposed and neither, upon close examination, are what I would call ‘civil’ – hence, the title. Also, take note of the cover art. My son, Andrew Smith, who lives in Kyoto, Japan, created it. He’s an outstanding teacher and photographer. You can see his photography at http://outsideinjp.com
I am posting below, part of the first chapter. I hope you enjoy it.
They were disgorged. Emerging into a new world like the Bilagáana of Navajo mythology, they climbed through the circular portal hoping to discover something entirely different that might not be offended by their excesses of technology and wealth.
The gear was pulled upward through the hatch on a long rope, repeatedly dropped until backpacks, cooking gear, food, clothing, water and scientific gear were brought upward from their underground world.
Yesterday, sensors which had been placed on the portal for several months picked up voices, heard clearly singing over the sound of a sharpening wind. And so today, the team had rushed on the first trans-cont train to this place, hoping for immediate contact.
While the others organized the gear, Anya headed toward a streambed west of the portal. She was nervous. There was no guarantee they would be received peacefully. Would they be attacked for their possessions? She worried that their emergence from the portal might fulfill a pagan prophecy making her task more difficult. They came to observe, not to shape a foreign culture.
She saw no one and continued downslope into a rocky ravine believing that water would dictate where the nomads stopped. From a distance the streambed looked dry. Approaching, Anya saw water moving between the smooth stones and began to hear it like small bells clapping in the rocks. It was a new sound to her ears. She was familiar with water features designed with fanatical accuracy to create symphonies of sound and she had enjoyed the impressive effects of infinity pools and laser lit cascades.
This was different. Simple but always changing. This was chaos organizing itself in the natural world. It was lovely. And no mechanical sounds competed for her ear. A bumptious wind raked the nearby trees, rattling leaves, but this served only to compliment the clear tones as the water hit and pushed through the polished stone.
Anya jumped as Nora called to her, breaking the spell of moving water.
“Anya, come get your damn gear. We’re not carrying your stuff too.”
Thirty-three months later:
She inspected the access portal, hesitant, hoping the locking mechanisms were too old to function, too rusted; hoped age had scrambled its digits. This portal was 300 years old and showed no signs it had ever been activated. The Peopé , or some other tribe, had marked its sides with drawings meant to disturb its evil cubic geometry and it was caked overall with the desert’s red dirt and insect detritus, the base on the south side riven with spider burrows. The desert was trying to claim it.
Until she spotted it, she had not considered returning. She had watched its distinctive shape grow with each sliding step, and was not attracted to it. It was offensive. But it spoke to her anxiety for the fetus growing inside her. It seduced her with guilt that she had not yet earned. A fatalistic gearbox from another age anchored in dirt, it demanded she fiddle with her happiness. Think of your baby, it warned.
The Peopé with whom she traveled would not understand how her Unborn could break her mind. They often sang to it as they sang to all the children who were waiting to enter this world. They sang to the unborn when the forests shaded them, when the rivers quenched their thirst, when the stars draped their nights. And they told her that her unborn was hungry for life; that it would be strong. But the portal amplified a small voice that was her anxiety. Having been told by the robotic medics of her Maker World that the live-birth babies of Maker-women were never viable, had always been delivered undeveloped onto the sterile green drapes of medical centers, her fears grew. The cube foretold terrible things and its presence was enough that she did not pass by. She stopped in mid stride and studied the portal, then gently relieved a viewing window of its blanket of red earth and peered inside. Nothing but darkness. If trains no longer ran on this underground spur, this might be a useless portal. Useless would be good. If it were useless, there was no decision to be made.
When she thought like a Maker, she had no idea where she was and no orientation with which to guess the usefulness of the portal. As Peopé , she knew exactly where she was; a half day’s walk to live water where enough autumn melons were ripening to attract other tribes. It would be a party night.
Hodé stopped beside her and watched her face grimace as she looked into the object. He saw that she understood something about this two-meter cube. He smelled her unrest, a disassembling of her persona that he had witnessed before. She was focused inward even though it was the middle of a day struck through with grey skin-eating light that discouraged interior travel. He clucked softly at her encouraging her to move. Still she stared downward into the object. Hunting for something there? It was dead. It had no odor nor color in its skin. It had not moved for generations. But when he put his ear to the cube, he heard a different story thrumming far away. There was a resonance here that warned him to keep his distance. He clucked again, less softly. She didn’t move.
She knew Hodé wouldn’t wait much longer. His last signal had been strong, even urgent. He knew something about the portal that her less developed eyes or ears hadn’t told her. He wanted to leave and he would, with or without her. Then she felt a vibration at her finger tips. Hodé was moving quickly away in a heel-down stride. The portal was waking, shaking the cube like a trapped vole. She felt its growing resistance to the ground, its need to break away. A sad throated hum rose toward her in a crescendo that could not be stopped. She rubbed more dust from the window and willed her eyes to witness the train, to identify it, if possible.
The flash, a yellow flash, as it shot by thirty feet underground, made her jump backwards. Yellow. It was the central Mexican line that connected with the eastern front of the Rockies. Twice a day in opposite directions. It would stop for her if the portal could be opened. She looked out into the hard light and saw Hodé on a distant knoll waiting to see if she would follow now that the beast had passed. She had only moments to choose. He would not wait, nor would her tribe with whom she had traveled for thirty-three moons. She doubted that she had the skills to track them once they passed out of sight. They walked lightly and her knowledge was shallow. Choose. A self-flagellating thought arose, expressed as ‘Why hadn’t I considered this possibility before?’ She saw that it was a Maker’s thought, laden with guilt and tried to pinch it off like a scorpion’s stinger. Useless. Time to act. She found the portal’s manual release and pulled it toward her in the ritualized fashion she had learned as a school girl, three quick pulls followed by three slower pulls finishing with three quick pulls. She waited, heard a metallic snap and the heavy round plastiloid lid opened on a solitary hinge. Stale angry air rose hissing toward the sunlight. It smelled of home.
She looked for Hodé but he was already gone. The knoll, where he had stood moments before, was no longer special, returning to the landscape as his spirit moved away. Her decision had been made for her. Catching Hodé would be impossible. She began to worry that climbing the four feet to the top of the portal where the Lid hung open might be as difficult as following Hodé. Eight months pregnant, she had learned to walk with grace, to pass over boulder fields in a full footed gait, her rhythm constant. She could still hunt and forage but moving her body to the top of the portal would be a challenge. And then there would be a ladder to descend. In a moment of horror, she feared there wasn’t enough room to pass her belly through the circular lid even if she found a way to climb onto the cube.
By piling stones against the cube’s wall, she managed to gain the top. On top, she dropped her water skin through the opening and heard it hit a hard floor after almost a full breath. Her legs dangled then found the ladder rungs and she began shifting her body over the opening. It was close. Leaving behind her sandals and the pleated thatch that she wore on her shoulders and hips, her only clothing, she descended into the darkness naked. Her stomach just cleared the opening and with arms stretched overhead, she used her back and feet to stabilize her descent until she could pull her arms in and grasp the ladder. She took a last look at the arid country. Moons ago, she had climbed up a similar portal, a thinner younger woman; had felt herself exuded like an egg from the ovipositor of a great metal insect. Today she was crawling backwards into the insect’s vagina. Inverted creation, she thought. It’s an abomination, a mistake. She took a final breath of the clean silver air, threw a kiss in the direction of Hodé’s back and closed the hatch on the best part of her life.
Find the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Uncivil-Richard-Smith-ebook/dp/B08CQC4TDK/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=uncivil+by+richard+a+smith&qid=1606228398&sr=8-2
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