DIOMEDES
is a forthcoming philosophical sci-fi novel.
Brave New World meets The Odyssey.
Adding a mythological twist to the framework of classic philosophical dystopian fiction, Diomedes explores the roles mythologies, ancestry, and environment play in identity, and how storytelling is at the heart of what makes us uniquely human. In an age on the brink of generational change and fears about AI, it commands us to remember who and what we are. For fans of Sea of Tranquility, How High We Go in the Dark, Wool, and Klara and the Sun.
25th century. The last twenty thousand humans live in a utopic megadome, sheltered from the Earth’s lethal atmosphere. Societal hardships have been eliminated, and with them so have people’s sense of identity and purpose. As a result, most try to identify with their predominant ancestors and their cultures, histories, and myths. Pro, a mythology obsessive whose predominant ancestry is Greek, has self-exiled for a decade following his involvement in a notorious fatal incident. When his best friend, Kisho, goes missing, Pro leaves his home to search for him, but instead finds the mutilated body of an emergency-response drone in the dome’s forest sector. Rather than notifying the dome’s governing Tribunal, he continues the search alone, hoping to redeem himself at the risk of unwanted scrutiny and criminal punishment, and likening the scenario to Heracles’ Twelve Labours, which Heracles accepted in order to atone for a horrible crime. Pro’s search leads him to illegally sneak onto a conscription tour, where he meets Aya, a scientist from the dome’s research program, and together they unravel an existential mystery that threatens their own survival and the survival of everyone in the dome.