Reality(TM) 2048, by Derek Cressman, is a finalist in the Foreword Indies Book of the Year awards for science fiction, a First Horizon finalist for new novelists from the Eric Hoffer Book Awards, and an award finalist in both the science fiction and visionary categories in the 2019 American Fiction Awards.
An inquisitive woman goes through the dreary motions of life in a not too distant Los Angeles that has lost its vivacity. Vera escapes her hollow world through a deep search within herself to avoid a deluge of commercial information. She gradually develops the capacity for independent thought, falls in love, and must then avoid a seductive technology that could render her catatonic.This post-Orwellian dystopia explores how the truth drowns in a sea of alternative facts, verified information, and sensationalized politics. Instead of deprivation, censorship and doublespeak, we see a future where corporations and political elites fuel vapid consumerism and control individual thought through a barrage of advertising, trademarked language, and addictive entertainment streamed directly into the brain.Reality™ 2048 challenges the tenants of Ayn Rand, globalism, and judicial activism with characters who confront the murky boundaries between rationality and emotion, objective truth and lived experience. Vera’s journey explores how socially manufactured identity filters what each of us can hear and comprehend and asks whether democratic society can exist when we no longer believe that anything is true. It’s where reality TV could take us if we cannot find ways to reconnect with the real world and with one another.
عن المؤلف
Derek Cressman is a voting rights advocate and award-winning author who has lived in Sacramento since 2000. He has worked professionally to reduce big money in politics in 1995 with nonpartisan organizations such as Common Cause and the Public Interest Research Group.
In 2014, Derek Cressman ran for California secretary of state. Though he wasn’t elected, the legislature responded to his campaign, and the efforts of others, by referring a question to the ballot instructing Congress to overturn the Citizens United ruling-the central plank of Derek’s campaign platform.
Cressman has served as a credentialed elections observer in Somalia, El Salvador, and Florida.
When he’s not working to improve our democracy, Derek enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters. He credits his time running marathons and mountaineering with building his fortitude to tackle obstacles of social change. He is an avid woodworker and picks at the banjo when he needs a break. Derek grew up in Colorado Springs and graduated with honors from Williams College in 1990 with a degree in political science.