Title: Conscience
Series: —
Author: Jonathan Pongratz
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: August 27, 2020
Heat Level: N/A
Pairing: N/A
Length: 37 pages
Genre: Sci-Fi, Dystopian
Add to Goodreads
Synopsis:
Rory Bennels lives in a world ruled by a business entity known as the Corporation. For years he’s executed cerebral uploads for the recently deceased, but when the famed anarchist Epher Lore ends up in his lab, a series of events occur that shakes Rory’s world to the core.
My Review:
Pongratz has created a world in which technology rules over humankind, and most individuals seem complacent to leave the status quo as is – rocking the proverbial boat is frowned upon. And complacency is expected – human emotions are discouraged. However, as with any dictatorship/overlord type situations, there are bound to be those who actively fight against the regime and an even larger number of those who question their lot in life.
And here’s where we find our main character, Rory, caught between an internal battle between being a good citizen, and struggling to assert his own individuality.
The short is an entertaining read of about an hour or so, but it’s not light-hearted. Given the current state of our world, and the serious and hard swing to Right-Centered politics and beliefs, and given that globally we’ve become dependant upon the internet and our handheld devices, there are some striking parallels between Pongratz’s short and our own lots in life. One could even say this was a cautionary tale of things to come for the human race.
I had the opportunity to read this as a beta reader, and for those of you who don’t know what that is – it’s assisting the author by reading the work in a near-finished state. I was able to weigh in on points throughout the story and pick the author’s brain. It’s an interesting exercise and I would encourage anyone who had the opportunity to jump all over it, dive in, and rip your way through the story.
I would have loved to see more development in this world. I desperately wanted to know how society got to where they were and was it social media that took them down? Was there an all-encompassing app that everyone downloaded that started the dystopian nightmare? But despite wanting more, the author was steadfast on their decision to maintain the story length as a short. And in some ways, I have to agree.
Conscience is a haunting look into the possibility of our own future, and the questions it makes you ask about how and why made me evaluate our current society.
I think we’re headed down the wrong path, and right into a dystopian technological horror.
Read this and prove me wrong.
Well done.
Rating:
Available At:
Meet The Author:
Jonathan Pongratz is a writer and author of captivating horror, fantasy, and other speculative fiction stories. When he’s not writing, he’s busy being a bookworm, video game junkie, and karaoke vocalist. A former resident of Dallas, he currently resides in Kansas City with his Halloween cat Ajax. By day he works magic in finance, by night he creates dark and mesmerizing worlds.
J.P. Jackson 
Reblogged this on Jaunts & Haunts.