Tuesday, February 19, 2019

The Amazing, Unfolding World of Machine Civilization series by Clayton Barnett


This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Clayton Barnett will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Politics in the future


On the first hand, the answer is simple: “In the immediate future, your skin will be your uniform.”

On the second hand, allow me to elaborate on that a bit. What is playing out in the US and western Europe right now is a competition between globalists and nationalists. The former believe humans to be nothing more than economic units who can be educated – in a classroom or concentration camp – to be whatever they want; that is, they see politics as their guiding light. The latter view that politics is downstream from culture, and, importantly, culture is downstream from race & biology. Some nations of central Europe, having seen first hand under Soviet occupation where the globalist agenda leads, have already rejected what they see coming out of Brussels and Washington. These are states of the Visegrad Group along with, for so long as their current government holds, Italy as well.

Aside: I have always enjoyed the hypocrisy of the globalists claims versus their actions: for open-borders fanatics who think a Somali is the same as a Swede, they themselves live in gentrified cities that have been cleared of all diversity – outside of those trendy ‘fusion’ restaurants – and in walled communities policed by armed guards all the while sending what few children they have to expensive and exclusive schools.

So, what we have is the American and western European governments importing millions of people will not assimilate because they cannot assimilate. What that has given us now are no-go zones and no-go cities. What it will give us in less than five years is the Yugoslav Civil War of the 1990s played out on a continent-wide arena. In that war, your immediate and extended family will be your platoon and your company, and your increasingly racially attenuated community will be your regiment. And, as I said at the beginning, your skin will be your uniform.

It is not a future I particularly want to see for myself or for my two daughters, but barring the US getting a leader such as an Orban or a Salvini, this is the train wreck we are sleepwalking into.

On the gripping hand, what’s funny is that knowing this, much of my writing and characters contradict it! Let’s take a look… “The Fourth Law” Living in the Republic of Texas, which in its formation experienced massive killings and deportations under the state terror organization ‘ExComm,’ the main character Lily Barrett is an early-twenties nurse who is ethnic Han Chinese. As an outsider and a non-White, she is accorded the status of Resident but not Citizen; she has the protection of the law but no voting or political rights.

“Echoes of Family Lost” On their small farm on the road between Knoxville and Oak Ridge, Leslie Hartmann is the head of his household made up of his Min Chinese wife, Callie, and his mixed-race son, Gary, who, as we find out, has been… modified… “Cursed Hearts” Christopher’s step-cousin – and later love interest – is half-Japanese and half-Polish. She even once reflects that “both of the guys I ever slept with are foreigners… I wonder what that says about me?”

“Saga of Nichole 5, Parts 1 & 2” The political situation comes closer to what I described above: elected Mayor of Portland just before the Breakup begins, multi-mixed race Lee Sanchez Johnson holds onto power through a variety of means, including a cadre of political police who are all non-White. I subvert the trope in having Nichole, who while a Japanese subject “looks like a poster-girl for Irish tourism,” work to make the Mayor’s daughter, a computer engineering grad student, his successor.


THE AMAZING UNFOLDING WORLD OF MACHINE CIVILIZATION SERIES
by Clayton Barnett

A history beginning in our near future, these stories are set in a world where the US dollar has been displaced as the world’s reserve currency, prompting its economic and political collapse, with a few areas able to hold onto civilization.

At the same time, across the Pacific, under a resurgent economy brought about by the implementation of new technology and deregulation, three Japanese companies produce breakthroughs in both artificial intelligence and robotics.  These newly made people exhibit an odd interest in the goings-on of the former United States.

To-date, my chronicling of this interest of theirs has led to stories that populate five novels, which I would like to share with everyone now!

*****
The Fourth Law - In the near future, 23-year-old apprentice nurse Lily Barrett lives in a shattered time.  Following its economic collapse, the US has devolved into a group of a few barely functional smaller states and vast swathes of barbarian badlands.  His sister has been missing for years, and her father, after earning the opprobrium of most of the world for running a state terror organization, presumed dead.

Two things keep her going: her live-in job at a small, Catholic orphanage in the city of Waxahachie, Republic of Texas, and Ai, her odd but dear friend, whom she met online; a young woman who only shows herself to Lily as a rendered CG image.

Troubled by her past, haunted by her name, and facing an uncertain future, Lily seems only a quiet, simple life.  But, that past and her present conspire against her.
*****

Echoes of Family Lost - Alive!  After four years believing her older sister lost and presumed dead in the horrible Breakup of the United States, Lily Barrett gets word from her dear friend, Ai – and Ai’s family of Machine Civilization – that Callie Barrett is very likely alive… but over 900 miles away in Knoxville.

Using the resources of her and Ai’s family, Lily puts together a search party to go find Callie:  old, broken, and burnt Orloff – an expert in surviving in the Badlands, Ai’s little sister, Fausta – her machine mind controlling a Combat Android to protect her friend, all together in a cart pulled by their sturdy pony, Clyde.

It’s almost a thousand miles to go, with something very odd trying to limit their ability to communicate over distance and even to cross bridges.  A chance meeting along the way in Huntsville, former Alabama, wrecks their plans, and puts all of their lives in danger.
*****

Cursed Hearts - Even with San Diego occupied by the Mexican Army, Katarina Sosabowski pursues her MBA at UCSD, and is happy to welcome and put up her visiting step-cousin from Japan, Christopher Dennou, for a night so he can complete his enrollment the following day.

But a minor earthquake brings a major surprise:  Chris’s younger sister, Maya, murders their mother and escapes Neuroi Institute, the research facility that created them.

While Chris and ‘Cat’ grow closer to one another, Maya inexorably crosses an ocean and half a continent to take back her brother, killing anyone who gets in her way.
*****
Friend and Ally - Model 5 is a prototype designed to fit seemlessly into human society.  A meeting in Tokyo derails Nichole’s planned training as she is dispatched to Portland, former Oregon; the last working deep water port on the West Coast of the imploding US.

There, under her cover as a Graduate Engineering Student, she is to do her utmost to nurture the people and politics of the City-State into a Friend and Ally of the Japanese Empire.  But from the first day in her new home, all of Nichole’s plans go awry.

Beset by those who want this small lamp of Western Civilization snuffed out, Nichole must find within herself the courage and ability to protect her new friends, at whatever consequence to herself.
*****

Foes and Rivals - After residing nearly a year in Portland, Nichole’s life seems to finally settle down: with her classes, friends, and lover.  But troubling rumors about secret deals between the City’s master and the savage horsemen to the east reach her ears.

With her own skills augmented by her friends and allies, she sets plans into motion she hopes will thwart those in opposition to her dream of a peaceful future.

Once again denied a quiet, normal life, Nichole is faced to make hard, dangerous choices that will jeopardize her, her friends, and the survival of the City itself.


EXCERPT

The Fourth Law

~oooOOOOoooo~

“hooo.....hoowwlll!....”

~oooooOOOOOOooooOOOOOoooooo~

“hah...haaawooooollLL!”

“Lily!”

“LILY! You’re not a wolf! Wake up!”

She groggily sat up from her bed. Huh?

“It’s three in the morning... you need to help your kids!” Ai shouted at her from her phone.

The kids!

She flung the cover aside and pushed her glasses onto her face. Now she could hear the siren. What was it this time? Tornado, airstrike, barbarians... the last was almost a year ago when they lost Texarkana. Wait. She shook her head to try to wake up. This time, she’d an unimpeachable information source.

“Ai. Status.” She said into the darkness.

“A fission weapon was detonated outside San Francisco about ten minutes ago; the weather pattern indicates fallout will travel north of you, into parts of former Kansas and Oklahoma. But, winds do change...”

“Right.” She started pulling her clothes on. “Wake up the Fitzhughs; I’ll be there in a minute.”

She walked from her bedroom through her main room, glancing at the monitors. She suddenly bit hard on her lower lip. On the monitors, Ai stood at attention in a Texas Field Forces uniform. For some unknown reason, she forgot to render her pants. Striped green and white panties? Lily worried about her friend sometimes.

ABOUT CLAYTON

One time engineer, some time pharmacy technician, full time husband and father, Clayton Barnett stumbled into writing a traditional novel November 2014 during National Novel Writing Month. Liking the results, he edited what would become “The Fourth Law” and set about teaching himself self-publishing. In the following four years he has produced four more novels as well as a children’s early reader, all in what is now called Machine Civilization.

Clayton Barnett lives in central Ohio with his wife, two daughters, and two dogs.

Find him at his website

Buy all the books in this series on Amazon or Smashwords. Echos of Family Lost and The Fourth Law are only 99c!

GIVEAWAY

Clayton Barnett will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

13 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good read.

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  2. Awesome excerpt, I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for sharing :)

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  3. Looks like an interesting book.
    Thanks for the contest. 

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  4. I am enjoying these tours and finding all the terrific books my family is enjoying reading. Thanks for bringing them to us and keep up the good work.

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  5. Do you write more in bad weather or sunshine?

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  6. None of the 'pin this image' links are good. I found all the books on goodreads.

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  7. Do you listen to music when you write?

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  8. What author do you most admire?

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  9. How many books do you read in a year?

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  10. Why am I writing these comments?

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So... inquiring minds want to know: what do you think?