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Totum Hominem

Tim Parise

出版	Lulu.com, 2013-07-11
主題	Fiction / Science Fiction / General
ISBN	13042221799781304222176
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=jnMHAwAAQBAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
EBook	SAMPLE

註釋

Past, present, and a possible future blur together in this story about Erin, an obscure copyist whose home lies within the vaguely-defined boundaries of a great valley. The last surviving descendant of a line of rulers called primi who once held sway over the valley, he finds himself at the center of a regional power struggle between the mountaineers of the western hills and the priests of the House of Alexander. The priests desire to maintain the status quo in the valley: namely, a rigidly hierarchical society totally dependent upon them for its intellectual and physical survival. The mountaineers have a bigger goal in mind: removing the House entirely and replacing it with - nothing. The absence of any sort of central authority, they claim, will restore humanity to the people of the valley and, equally importantly, facilitate the building of ships and the exploration of the distant seas, ventures which the priests have carefully suppressed. When the priests see a potential threat to their power in Erin and move to eliminate him, the mountaineers respond by kidnapping him to save his life. As a refugee in the mountains, he is forced to adjust to existence in a community held together by the loosest possible ties of self-interest while coping with the realization of what the priests have done to him and every other one of their subjects. At the same time, he must decide for himself whether he is fully human or not, and if so, what his rights and obligations are as a man and a member of no group other than the human race.