THE
DARK COURT
Vyvyan
Evans
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE:
Science Fiction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
A
genre-blending dystopian, sci-fi mystery-thriller that will make you
think about communication in a whole new way.
Five
years after the Great Language Outage, lang-laws have been repealed,
but world affairs have only gotten worse. The new automation agenda
has resulted in a social caste system based on IQ. Manual employment
is a thing of the past, and the lowest soc-ed class, the Unskills,
are forced into permanent unemployment.
In
a world on the brink of civil war, a deadly insomnia pandemic
threatens to kill billions. Lilith King, Interpol’s most celebrated
detective, is assigned to the case.
Together
with a sleep specialist, Dr. Kace Westwood, Lilith must figure out
who or what is behind this new threat. Could the pandemic be the
result of the upskilling vagus chips being offered to the lowest
soc-ed class? Or are language chips being hacked? And what of the
viral conspiracy theories by the mysterious Dark Court, sweeping the
globe? Lilith must work every possible angle, and quickly: she is
running out of time!
While
attempting to stop a vast conspiracy on an intergalactic scale,
Lilith also faces shocking revelations about her origin, coming to
terms with her own destiny.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt
But
just then, twenty meters in front of me, a small group of Dark Court
cultists emerged, out from a side corridor. I grimaced—this only
meant trouble. There were four of them, this time with cappa hoods
covering their heads, obscuring their faces from sec-cam and LS orb
identification by NYPD droids. They were no doubt trying to imitate
their beloved, so-called adjudicators, the self-appointed, anonymous
leaders of this vile cult of violence and misinformation. The
cultists were dressed in black from head to toe, including leather
pants and tunics. They even wore black, tactical Kevlar gloves.
The
cultists spotted me. “Let’s get her, boys,” said one voice.
Then I heard raucous laughter.
They
moved toward me, cutting off my route to the UN employee East River
entrance. And as they approached, they pulled out neural shock
sticks, sheathed in cases worn around their belts. Of course, just my
luck. The long, thin devices were illegal, and for good reason. If
applied for more than a few seconds, they could result in permanent
brain damage or even death. I steeled myself—this was the only way
through.
As
I neared, the group appeared surprised I was still heading toward
them—not the response they expected. I would never run away again,
not since that night in the Black Forest, twenty years ago. Sure, I
had been through Interpol’s basic combat training, back in the day.
For what that was worth. But since the Black Forest, I had taken
self-defense training to insane levels, obsessive as always. You
could say I had elevated it to the status of a dark art.
Guest Post
Background
to Unilanguage: They who control language control everything
The
Dark Court is book #2 in the Songs of the Sage science fiction book
series. The books predict a near-future when language is no longer
learned, but streamed to neural implants in people’s head, streamed
from internet in space. The book explores the dystopian consequences
of this.
In
a future era of language-as-commodity, it is inevitable that whether
a language lives or dies would be based on economics. In other words,
those languages with little demand on streaming services would cease
to exist.
As
language would be stored entirely on servers, language would, in
effect, be controlled by the big tech companies that lease it back to
human populations that have undergone language chipping.
The
Songs of the Sage books imagine a system where language is controlled
by a body based in California, called Unilanguage. This is modelled
on the very system in place for vetting new emojis, which are
controlled and approved by Unicode (also based in California,
controlled by just a few of the world’s leading tech firms).
One
consequence would be that as languages fall out of demand, there
would be little incentive for big tech firms to continue to store
them, tying up valuable server space. And as populations undergo the
process of having language chips implanted in their brains, native
speakers would cease to exist. Hence, lesser-used languages would
simply die out—a consequence of lack of demand, which is simple
economics at work. If there is no demand, it doesn’t pay. Hence,
providers stop offering it.
The
books imagine a future in which there are just 250 surviving
languages (compared to around 7,000 today).
National
governments would, inevitably, try to preserve cultural unity, while
ensuring subscriptions are affordable for the poorest citizens.
Hence, the Songs of the Sage books posit a situation in which (most)
states require all public security systems (referred to as
VirDas—short for Virtual Digital Assistants) to run on a single
state language. For context, VirDas are the mechanisms for processing
voice commands, and hence the main security portals for accessing
everything from grocery stores to offices, from vehicles to homes.
As
an example, the national state language in France, on which all
public VirDas would run, would be French. In the US, it would likely
be English. In practice, this would mean that in France, say, it
would be sufficient to only need to pay for a single language
streaming package. And to gain entry to a supermarket, for instance,
the language user would identify at the store entrance, using voice
commands, by speaking into the VirDa. Incidentally, this technology
would also mean that stores and supermarkets are fully automated (no
need for human clerks or cashiers). Label sensor fusion tech, already
being trialled, would mean that a shopper’s groceries can be
located with each individual shopper, who would use their voice
command authorization to pay for their purchase at self-checkout,
prior to being “allowed” to leave the store.
Of
course, there are multiple consequences of all this for language.
Regional accents and dialects, being non-standard, would require more
expensive streaming subscriptions—this entails that regional
accents would become status symbols. The working classes would be, in
effect, priced out of their own local language varieties.
The
range and variety of human language would be erased at a stroke.
This, self-evidently, has implications for identity, ethnicity, and
so on. It also has consequences for who controls language, and how
new words are coined, or come to fall out of use. These would become
decisions for big tech and government, not individual speakers of
languages.
Given
all this, The Dark Court, along with the other books in the series,
serve as a warning: when we lose language we all lose.
AUTHOR
Bio and Links:
Dr.
Vyvyan Evans is a native of Chester, England. He holds a PhD in
linguistics from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and is a
Professor of Linguistics. He has published numerous acclaimed popular
science and technical books on language and linguistics. His popular
science essays and articles have appeared in numerous venues
including 'The Guardian', 'Psychology Today', 'New York Post', 'New
Scientist', 'Newsweek' and 'The New Republic'. His award-winning
writing focuses, in one way or another, on the nature of language and
mind, the impact of technology on language, and the future of
communication. His science fiction work explores the status of
language and digital communication technology as potential weapons of
mass destruction.
Book
website (including ‘Buy’ links): http://www.songs-of-the-sage.com
Author
website: https://www.vyvevans.net/
Youtube
channel: https://www.youtube.com/@vyvevans
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/VyvEvans
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Vyvyan.Evans.Author
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/nephilim_publishing/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY
INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE
Vyvyan
Evans will award a randomly drawn winner paperback copies of both
book 1 and book 2 of the series
