Thirty Pieces of Silver
(2024)(A book in the Spirits in the Silicon series)
A Novella by Travis J I Corcoran and Lawrence Railey
Every society worships something
In our world, in the 21st century, we worship consumerism, or sexual liberation, or the Party.
...but in the alternate history cyberpunk world of Heretics of the Catacombs, where Rome never fell, where moveable type was invented in 1125, lighter-than-air travel in 1350, and electricity in 1450, society still worships the the One True God, and venerates His saints and apostles.
Worship always involves physical artifacts. In some societies it's rainbow flags. In others, little red books of the Party founder's saying. In the eternal city of Byzantium and the rest of the Roman Empire that never fell, it's relics - a fragment of the True Cross, a tooth of an ancient saint, a piece of a centuries-old transistor radio.
Venture into the neon lit world of Byzantium in the futuristic year of 1754 Anno Domini, when cybernetically augmented monks chant as they swing incense burning thuribles, surgically enhanced hookers flirt with hackers in underground bars, Viking mercenaries sell their guns to the highest bidder, and Aztec traders offer chocolate, gold, and illegal cocaina.
...and in the background, behind the mist and the drizzle, beneath the electroluminescent-lit towers and churches, below the filth and the riches, the forces of Good and Evil do battle in the darkness.
Genre: Science Fiction
In our world, in the 21st century, we worship consumerism, or sexual liberation, or the Party.
...but in the alternate history cyberpunk world of Heretics of the Catacombs, where Rome never fell, where moveable type was invented in 1125, lighter-than-air travel in 1350, and electricity in 1450, society still worships the the One True God, and venerates His saints and apostles.
Worship always involves physical artifacts. In some societies it's rainbow flags. In others, little red books of the Party founder's saying. In the eternal city of Byzantium and the rest of the Roman Empire that never fell, it's relics - a fragment of the True Cross, a tooth of an ancient saint, a piece of a centuries-old transistor radio.
Venture into the neon lit world of Byzantium in the futuristic year of 1754 Anno Domini, when cybernetically augmented monks chant as they swing incense burning thuribles, surgically enhanced hookers flirt with hackers in underground bars, Viking mercenaries sell their guns to the highest bidder, and Aztec traders offer chocolate, gold, and illegal cocaina.
...and in the background, behind the mist and the drizzle, beneath the electroluminescent-lit towers and churches, below the filth and the riches, the forces of Good and Evil do battle in the darkness.
Genre: Science Fiction
Used availability for Travis Corcoran's Thirty Pieces of Silver