Wakeful Wanderer's Guide

A captivating picture of a climate-changed future viewed from two starkly different cultural perspectives, The Wakeful Wanderer's Guide to New England & Beyond follows the paths of a runaway aristocrat, a Luddite tyrant, a spy seeking retribution, and a wandering historian, unicycling north along the crumbling Boston Post Road. Marto Boxter is an optimistic journalist with a head full of implants. When we meet him, he is planning a ride into the interconnected tribes of the Northeast from his town of Riverside-on-Hudson. He plans to document his ride by posting his thoughts in real-time to his post-human followers. Before he can leave on his tour however, a runaway named Helen arrives with secret information that throws Marto's placid world into turmoil. Helen is from a Traditionalist family in Pittsburgh opposed to the Interconnected. They see Marto's culture as lawless, godless, and fundamentally inhuman. Helen has left that world, looking for a better sense of belonging with the people her family considers "xombies." Meanwhile, Barnabas Yoniver IV, the leader of a Luddite town to the south launches a plot to disrupt the life of all upgraded humans and bring them back to the traditional economy of markets and governments. Aware of Yoniver's plans, rival Luddite families scheme to prevent Barnabas from grabbing too much power for himself. This darkly humorous reflection of our changing world is an exploration of what it means to be human as our relationships with technology become increasingly intimate.

The America of our near-future is divided across socio-economic and technological-philosophical lines. The Traditionalists eschew any and all post-human technologies in favor of tangible materials. They uphold strict hierarchical structures based on religion, family, and leadership. They long for the return of the global markets wiped out by a world-shaking disaster called The Great Tide. The Interconnected stand in stark opposition to their ways, living without property, family, or religion, and modifying their bodies with the help of new and invasive technologies. They speak to each other wordlessly, employing a technological telepathy they call 'thexting' to communicate mind to mind, and embrace the gifting economy of Merit to maintain their post-scarcity lifestyles. Marto, the traveling Interconnected historian, has exiled himself to protect the ones he loves from his dark secret. In his absence, Helen, a runaway Traditionalist aristocrat, struggles to find her place among the Interconnected, unwilling to return to her cruel family. Reyleena, the former head of security in the Interconnected town of Reverside, has returned to a life of quiet solitude, broken occasionally by the impositions of The Other, an omnipresent AI, who will not leave her alone. Meanwhile, Barnabas, the Traditionalist leader of New Atlantic, fights to return to his township in the wake of an attack. Nora, his sister, remains in Reverside and must come to terms with her new life in captivity.