Sex War One

Sex War One – my dystopian Sci-fi novel – is available for purchase in all eBooks & iBooks stores & devices. “Fast-moving plot and skillful characterization,” said the Science Fiction Studies journal. “This book unifies within it the principles of major Science-Fiction literature,” said This World. Kindle Edition & Smashwords Edition (for iTunes, Kobo, B&N & more.) For further details please check my books page.

To give you a taste of the book, I’ve been posting segments of my award-winning short story, “The Monster,” which serves also as the basis for the book. Here then is the seventeenths segment:

He found Z.Z. as he had left her: sitting in the corner, looking at him with frightened, sad eyes. Strange eyes, too, thought D.L. As if she knew something was wrong. As if she were aware, informed by some source deep inside her, that her life would never be the same.
He pointed at the nylon blanket with which she covered herself at nights and told her, in words and in hand-signs, to gather all the food and drink she had there, maybe some of the special fire-balls he kept for her as well, and anything else she wanted to take with her, and put it all in that blanket. They were leaving this place; they were going outside.
She hurried to do so, and gathered into the blanket a large quantity of food and drink, all in the forms of pills, liquid-solutions, and powders. Then suddenly, after a moment of hesitation, she tore off the walls some of the drawings she had done with D.L.’s help. They were childish drawings, but they were hers. She stuffed them, together with some primitive crayons D.L. had made for her, into her blanket.
D.L. was surprised to see her doing so, and gave her an uncommon look of affection. Encouraged, she put in the blanket a few of the toys he had made for her, and also some notebooks and study materials. Maybe she thought that there, where they were going, these things would be of use to her. D.L. would be there with her as well, and would continue to teach her and guide her.
He thought about it, too, refusing to let go. Other thoughts and feelings came to him suddenly, memories of things past. He had to force himself not to let these disturbing thoughts stand in the way of his decision to take her outside. He wanted to finish this ugly affair quickly and efficiently. But he had to admit that, deep down, he had gotten used to her shack and her toys, her drawings and her learning tools, and to her presence in his life. He had gotten used to having her here, waiting for him. His Z.Z.; the colony’s Monster.
She was standing upright now, carrying her blanket of belongings on her back. Ready to go. Ready to follow D.L., wherever he would take her. But as they exited her shack she halted suddenly in the doorway and looked back at her home. D.L. halted too and looked back at her, then moved closer to her. There, in her eyes, he believed he saw the fear and sadness of departure, of an unexplained, unnecessary separation. He saw moisture in her eyes, too, and was afraid she was going to cry. He knew very well, of course – as life in the Underground-Colony B/365 had taught him throughout his life – that crying belonged to the forgotten past. It was one of those “historical” words, explaining a “hysterical” emotional outburst of no use anymore, and of no reason to be displayed here in this cold, cool, ultra-sophisticated colony.