Prayer

The Yewberry Way, Book I

De: Jack Gist

Narrado por: Alan Turton

Duración: 8 h y 53 m

Resumen del Editor

“Who are you? Who am I?”

When a reclusive Outpost Keeper stumbles upon a man praying in a desert waste, the world shifts. Not just for the Outpost Keeper. For everyone and everything.

With the appearance of the Praying Man, the boundary between myth and reality is blurred. The System—a painstakingly constructed post-apocalyptic society where violence, hunger, and desire have been driven underground—is undermined.

When the Praying Man disappears as mysteriously as he appeared, the Outpost Keeper is struck by a sudden case of amnesia. Charged with sedition by System officials for conspiring with the enemy, he is drugged and interrogated. Still, he cannot remember what the Praying Man told him.

Dr. Yew Uket, a specialist in neuro-consciousness, is called in to extract memories from deep within the Outpost Keeper’s mind. What she finds causes her to believe she has found the key that will unlock an ancient prophecy. She concocts a plan to kidnap the Outpost Keeper in the hope he can show her the way to the Praying Man.

Uket recruits a crew of ragtag System rejects—including Dr. Waters, a medical doctor who has fallen in love with her. The rebels take the Outpost Keeper, now in a vegetative state, from his cell. Thus begins their journey into the Wastelands.

The Wastelands are the opposite of the System. There are no rules. With System soldiers in pursuit, the rebels find both friends and enemies among a feral people known as the Cactus Eaters. Here they encounter faeries and witches, mechanical wolves and giant lizards, and magic hidden in the mundane.

When the group is violently torn apart, each must set out to find the Praying Man on their own. To fail means to be forever lost in the mystery that is the human mind.

©2023 Jack Gist (P)2023 Jack Gist

Spiritual, vivid, poetic

Told through flashbacks, Gist plunges the reader into the story of a search to find the Praying Man, but in searching for him the characters, especially Dr. Uket, look back and see that what changed was themselves. Gist uses the present tense which imbues the narrative with an immediate and eternal ambiance. I especially appreciated the nature imagery and the detail with which Gist builds his worlds. Gist knows his characters like people in his life. Further, this book is a goldmine for creative revisioning. About every fifteen minutes, I realized the Gist was describing an object or emotion in a new way.
I feel like I’m better artist because I read it. Highly recommend.