Title: Way Of The Serpent
Series: The Recall Chronicles
Author: Donna Dechen Birdwell
Genre: Adult Dystopian
Release Date: 5th June 2015
BLURB supplied by "The Author's Assistant"
It’s 2125. Aging is a
thing of the past but personal memories and desires are now under corporate
management. Jenda Swain is a youthful 111 years old, content with her
professional career, when a disturbing encounter with an old woman forces her
to question her own identity, to begin searching for the woman she once was and
might yet become. Her journey takes her into the arms of an activist artist who
has a quest of his own; answers come together as their world falls apart.
EXCERPT
Way Of The Serpent
The café was down a couple of side streets, in an
area of Dallas Jenda never went to, but she thought she might have been there
once before. She couldn't remember. Without looking at the menu, she ordered a
grilled cheese sandwich with fried potatoes and sweet tea. It was plain food.
She was halfway through her meal, savoring the anonymity afforded by this
out-of-the-way eatery as much as the greasy fare, when she noticed the woman
who had turned on her stool at the café’s counter to stare.
The woman was old. That in itself was disturbing. Nobody
got old anymore, not since Chulel – the drug that prevented aging – had come on
the market a hundred years ago. Jenda, at 111, was as fresh and vigorous as she
had been in 2035 when, at the age of 22, she had received her first annual
Chulel treatment. Jenda’s grandmother was 165, but appeared no older than she
had been when she began taking Chulel in her mid-sixties. What was this old
woman doing in Jenda’s world?
Jenda turned away, but she could still feel the
woman’s dark eyes boring into her, probing. Jenda couldn’t help herself; she
looked again. When the woman saw her looking, she smiled.
“Zujo!” Jenda swore, quickly returning her
attention to her unfinished sandwich. It was too late. Taking the look as an
invitation, the woman dropped down from her counter stool and shuffled over to
Jenda's table.
“You're Jenda Swain,” she said, cocking her head to
one side and narrowing her eyes. “God, you look the same as you did in high
school.”
“Excuse me?” Jenda sat up straighter and used her
best business voice.
“Of course you don't remember,” the woman said,
dragging out the chair across from Jenda and sitting down heavily. “Nobody
remembers much of anything anymore.” She shrugged and looked down at her hands.
Jenda looked, too. The woman's hands were wrinkled, misshapen, and covered in
brown and red splotches. “I remember you, though,” she continued, looking up
into Jenda’s face. “My god, you were a firebrand back then. I idolized you and
your boyfriend, you know. Such temerity! The things you did...” The woman
refused to turn away. “Do you still paint? You always had your mom’s gift for
art.”
“I think you must have made some mistake,” Jenda
said quietly, fighting to modulate her voice against the tightening in her
throat. “You may know my name, but you clearly don't know me. Nothing you are
saying makes any sense at all.” Jenda felt her cheeks warm as she flashed on an
image of herself with an easel and paintbrush. Her last bite of sandwich seemed
to have lodged somewhere near the base of her esophagus. “Now, would you please
go on your way? Leave me alone.” Jenda blinked, shuttering herself away from
this intrusive presence.
The woman's face clouded and she leaned forward,
looking Jenda squarely in the eye. “You need to ask more questions.” She spoke
the words clearly and forcefully. Then she pushed her chair away from the table
with a loud scraping noise. As she leaned over to pick up the leather bag she
had dropped under the chair, the pendant around her neck clanked on the
tabletop. It was an old fashioned timepiece, the kind with a round face with
numbers and moving hands. Jenda reflexively reached up to grasp her own
necklace, a cluster of plexiform flowers in the latest style from her favorite
recyclables boutique. The woman took in a deep breath, as if rising from the
chair had taxed her strength. She looked at Jenda again. “You’re the one who
doesn’t know who Jenda Swain is.” Her voice was gentle, maybe sad. Then she
turned and walked out the front door.
Jenda’s impulse to run after the woman and
ask her name was unexpected. Holding it in check, she sat rigidly, staring at
her cold, greasy food. She swallowed hard, trying to dislodge that last bite of
sandwich. Her hands trembled. She quickly finished her dilute, not-so-sweet
tea. Looking up and down the street as she exited, she saw no sign of the
woman.....
Series: The Recall Chronicles
Author: Donna Dechen Birdwell
Genre: Adult Dystopian
Release Date: 21st May 2016
BLURB supplied by "The Author's Assistant"
Malia is a stubbornly dissident author and bibliophile in a world where books have ceased to matter and barely exist. She remembers how things changed through the 21st century, but after fifty years of self-imposed exile, she returns to a world far more terrifying than the one she fled. In Dallas, Nigeria, and India she doggedly pursues the truth her heart demands.
Goodreads Link
Amazon US
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EXCERPT
Shadow Of The Hare
The café was down a couple of side streets, in an area of
Dallas I hadn’t visited for decades. As soon as I sat down I saw her and I
couldn’t help but stare. It had to be Jenda. When I saw her looking at me, I
slid down off the barstool and walked over to her table.
“You’re Jenda Swain,” I said, smiling, hoping she’d say, And
you’re Malia Poole! But she didn’t. I hadn’t seen her in almost ninety
years and it was clear she’d been taking the age prophylaxis, the miracle drug
called Chulel that kept everyone young in our 22nd-century world. Almost
everyone. She was giving me that look—that what-the-zujo-is-an-old-woman-like-you-doing-in-my-world
look—followed by the averted eyes.
“Of course you
don’t remember,” I said. I pulled out a chair and sat across from her. “Nobody
remembers much of anything anymore.” I looked down at my wrinkled,
age-splotched hands and then up into her smooth, fresh face. It was hard to
believe I was two years younger than Jenda. “I idolized you and your boyfriend,
you know. Such temerity! The things you did…” I was hoping to elicit some of
those things from her or perhaps startle myself into recalling what some of
them were.
She said nothing, glancing around the café as if to offer
an apology for my presence. For my existence.
A memory suddenly came to me: a full-color portrait of
Jenda as she was in high school. Not this business-suited twit, but a
passionate firebrand of a girl. An artist?
“Do you still paint?” I wasn’t giving up. “You always had
your mom’s gift for art.”
Jenda was clearly embarrassed and growing quietly angry.
But I thought I detected the old passion under the surface. Come on
Jenda—show me some of the old spunk.
She avoided my gaze. “I think you must have made some
mistake.” Her tone was flat, dismissive. “You may know my name, but you clearly
don’t know me.”
Her face flushed slightly and I thought I saw a glimmer
of recognition in her eyes. Leaning forward, I looked into those eyes. “You
need to ask more questions,” I said. I pushed my chair back and rose to go;
then I looked down at her one last time. “You’re the one who doesn’t know who
Jenda Swain is.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Donna
Dechen Birdwell is an anthropologist whose curiosity about what makes human
beings tick propelled her to travel widely, listening to the stories of many
different cultures and eventually coming up with a few of her own. Her debut
novel is WAY OF THE SERPENT. High on the list of countries she knows and loves
are Belize, Guatemala, Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba, England, Ireland, Spain,
Nepal, India, and Tibet. Her work is deeply influenced by the stories and
imagery of these places. Donna is an artist, poet, and photographer as well as
a novelist. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from Southern Methodist
University and previously taught at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. She
now writes, paints, and photographs in Austin.
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