Social justice fantasy
Deliverance in the Dark, the first book in the Ironverse series by author L.M. Blade begins the process of world building for a post-apocalyptic Chicago inhabited by magical beings. The story takes place some 900 years from now, after the Black Sun era when the world was in the dark and after which it emerged radically altered. The New Era offers tremendous advantages for its people, but its mysterious global government may be trying to eliminate the Moonchildren: humans with special abilities including the Magi, the Desmonites (vampire bats), and the Lupinites (werewolves). The Lupinites have compensated by forming a powerful organized crime ring with its own business interests and means of protection. When our heroine-author’s latest book is rejected by her publisher because it’s about outer space (now a prohibited topic according to the United Domains central government) she turns to the shady Lupinites to get published.
It’s a rich sci-fi fantasy world with a focus squarely on social justice themes. I’ll leave you to discover the skeleton butler, the Desmonite photojournalist who doesn’t need a drone for aerial photography (because…bat), and the werewolf gang leaders.
My most frequent mental companion in the booth while recording this time around: Brent Spiner. There are androids in the Ironverse as well, and the quintessential android in my book is Spiner’s Lt. Commander Data of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Like Spock before him, the character’s narrative function was mostly to highlight aspects of society from the vantage point of an outsider looking in — all the while, of course, revealing his own humanity in the process. And Spiner was brilliant at bubbling up that internal life of being in essence a machine parsing problems, apparently without emotion, who nevertheless longed to truly understand the feelings and motivations of the humans around him. Our android character in this book is Midway, a mental health android who serves as therapist and companion for the main character. When voicing her, I often thought to myself, “What would Data do?”
Get the Deliverance in the Dark audiobook on Audible
Check out L.M. Blade’s website and discover the Ironverse.