The Peril Inherent

Book excerpt: We call to paper the quandary of Valerie Meridian and what to do with him. Valerie is a victim of the 21st Century. Valerie wants to do the right thing the television told him so trouble is, the television never told him exactly what the right thing is, and now he's spent his days in search of someone who might finish what it started. Well, Valerie's about to get a lesson in letting others do his thinking for him. Our story begins with a choice. For Valerie to help himself at the harm of another or to help another at the harm of himself. But what everyone forgot to tell him was that the world doesn't care if he makes the right choice or not, and that his decision will find him swiftly in a reality beyond even the television's infinite imagination a world of circuitry rampant, and of technology forgotten, of genetic minorities and of majority rule, a world of programmed morality and dogmatic conformity, of terrorism and colonization and a debauched human form, of mechanical police and organic computers, a world where truth and lie share a common interest, where death is held for ransom, and life is handed out for free.