Adriana Buckowski is not normal. Her eyes are two different colors, making her less susceptible to the system’s propaganda.
Welcome to one of the January 6th stops on the blog tour for Surrogate Colony by Boshra Rasti with Silver Dagger Book Tours (schedule linked.) Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.
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About the Book
Surrogate Colony
by Boshra Rasti
Published 18 December 2021
Atmosphere Press
Genre: Dystopian Science Fiction
Page Count: 225
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In MicroScrep, a post-pandemic world, one politician, Arthur Mills, brings all scientists and engineers together to create a vaccine and rebuild a world where harmony ensues. What results is a society where algorithms control who you marry, who your child is, and what position you have.
Adriana Buckowski is not normal. Her eyes are two different colors, making her less susceptible to the system’s propaganda, she has a unique connection with a boy named Zach, and she has questions. Weird occurrences happen as she gets closer to her Calling Ceremony, where she’ll be given a position. When she finally starts piecing together the twisted motives at play in MicroScrep, she becomes a cog in the wheel of the state.
Her only option for survival lies with Zach, and the hope that she will be vindicated through a vigilante group off-grid. But with time ticking against her, will she survive long enough to be redeemed?
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Reviews
“A stunning debut by a bold new writer whose vision of the future conjures the near-impossibility of affection, with women tossed homicidally into surrogate birthing centers and men groomed to become, yes, eunuchs. Or if you will, think Brave New World meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Boshra Rasti’s dystopia redeems itself when two young characters conceive of a daring off-grid survival among a group of elusive scientists. The author’s mature and compelling voice is not afraid to lift the scrim, but beware, for when she does lift the scrim, readers may recognize a society whose angers and horrors and violent fetishism may seem all too familiar. Surrogate Colony is a must read.” ~ Dan Gutstein, author of Buildings without Murders
“The crisp prose and vibrant characters contained within Surrogate Colonies’ worldscape is a stunning debut by an author sure to capture the public imagination. Rasti writes of the not-too-distance future with terrifying clarity.” ~ Raymond Lee, author of The Race Riot
“Surrogate Colony is a thrilling tale of love, betrayal, and the dangers of a world reliant on technology.” ~ Caryn Pine
“Boshra Rasti’s sweeping dystopian drama follows two young protagonists on a journey of survival and redemption. Set in a post-pandemic world, Surrogate Colony explores the human psyche after trauma and what can happen when we succumb to fear. While Ms. Rasti’s writing is filled with vivid imagery and edge-of-your-seat action, it is also the bond between Adriana and Zach that anchors this story firmly in the reader’s mind.” ~ Katherine Day, Grattan Street Press
“It is not a surprise to learn that Boshra Rasti has a debut novel coming out. I knew that she had the goods as a writer when her brilliant short piece Creep appeared in Literally Stories UK during the spring of 2021. She writes tough, economical yet entertaining descriptive prose. From what I have previewed of it, the same holds the day in Surrogate Colony. All readers new to Boshra will be well rewarded.” ~ Leila Allison, Associate Editor, Literally Stories UK
Excerpt
I notice more people filtering in and decide to go back to my chair. I scan the audience and seating for viruses. Finding my chair, I am almost ready to sit down, when a little, frail, blond girl approaches me, tapping me on the back before I take my seat. She can’t be older than ten. A cloth patch covers one eye. I recognize her; she’s a little girl that lives on our compound. I haven’t seen her before with the patch over her eye, though.
“Oh, is this your chair?” she asks, one bright, blue eye looking up at me.
“Yes, sorry sweetie, it is. Where are your parents? Aren’t you here with them?”
“Sort of. They are in charge of the music,” she says, looking down to the ground. “They won’t play any of the music that I’ve composed,” she says glumly.
“What kind of music do you create?” My curiosity piqued. I’ve never heard her playing music before on the compound. Come to think of it, I’ve never heard of a child composing music. I thought it came from an algorithm from Harmony.
“Nothing like the music played here. Father tells me to imagine what a flowing stream sounds like, or what birds must sing like, off-grid.” She mumbles this quietly, and I incline my ear to listen to her whistle a tune.
Goosebumps cascade down my arms, I choke out a whisper. “That’s very beautiful. You have a great talent.” This is the closest to an emotional response to music I’ve ever had. How peculiar, I notice that beyond the little girl is Laura, who is facing me, the dog lunging and barking at us. When she notices me watching her, she turns, pulling the dog away.
The little girl smiles, her one eye fixated on my face, and without a word, she turns and skips away. I want to follow her, to make sure she gets a seat and to compliment her and her parents at the end of the parade, but something on the other side of the plexiglass grabs my attention. Kevin is walking with Cody, their backs to me. I can see that their heads are tilted towards each other as if they are exchanging private comments. This strikes me as strange, Cody seems to increasingly spend more time with Kevin, even though Kevin is far older than Cody is. I wonder what they have in common that makes them spend so much time together? They do have soccer in common, but would a sport make two people so close? Kevin places an arm around Cody’s shoulder, and he gives it a pat as they part ways. Kevin wraps around the last plexiglass barricade and sits in the audience beside the little girl who whistled so sweetly.
My mind overwhelmed with all these sights and sounds around me, I now desperately want the parade to begin and be over so that I can go home. The parade will start shortly. I can hear the music amplified and the people in the parade taking their positions on, or in front, of their floats. I look around for Mother and Father and see them in the distance. I wave them over and take my seat.
A holographic projection reads, “Pre-MicroScrep Barbarians.” The music starts off chaotically to match the first floats that depict the pre-MicroScrep era. An unorganized swarm of actors dance wildly with synthetic blood covering their faces. They run up towards the plexiglass, sticking out their tongues, or showing long, bloody fangs. They hoot and holler to communicate; the audience taken aback by the abruptness, some laugh and point. A flash of light brings oohs and aaahs from the crowd. Everything goes black. The next float that passes is of people coughing and sputtering, some are choking. Cody’s body lies covered by a flag, one of a half dozen strewn on the ground. The holographic projection reads, “The Pandemic Hits.” A strong, large man depicting Arthur Mills stands back, bringing the scientists together in a circle to come up with a solution to the terrible pestilence that has hit mankind. All the while another float depicts men and women swaying, depicting the animalist urges that they did not control and what caused the pandemic to move through the population. Then finally, a float depicting the children that came of these wild pairings. Ugly, dumb and mad. Their mouths contorted into barbaric sneers.
The music becomes softer, timelier and more organized, although still electronic. A hologram of Arthur Mills projects largely to the clap of the audience. Some are in tears, pointing to their Perfect Family Matches, the grandness of his face, the redness of his hair, the symmetry of his features. A float of scientists that are busy working on a vaccine is depicted. The music becomes grander and louder, the crescendo coinciding with the hologram showing the mandatory vaccine inoculating the masses against the unseen enemy, the virus.
About the Author
Boshra Rasti is an Iranian-Canadian expatriate, writer and educator. She currently lives in Qatar as a teacher.
She is the author of several published poems, “Connection in the City”, a poem about the city of Surrey, BC, Canada, as well as the author of “In the Chrysalis”, a poem about the COVID-19 pandemic, published in Together… Apart, an anthology of creative works published by HBKU Press. Her short stories have been published by Grattan Street Press, Literally Stories, and South Florida Poetry Journal.
Boshra draws inspiration from the teenage mind, one she may not have fully outgrown. She also is an avid runner who enjoys the self-torture of running in Qatar. She has other eclectic interests such as making vegan ice-cream.
She may or may not use a pen name in the future to prevent a life-long tendency that people have of butchering her name. She hopes to someday make her home somewhere that doesn’t include burning up due to the consequences of global warming.
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