Blurb:
Good
manners never go out of style…do they?
There
aren’t any zombies (yet), but the world is still at the brink of
destruction: It’s 2028 and global warming has led to rising oceans,
crazy weather, and resource scarcity. On top of that, someone just
turned the Internet off. Seeing as how it’s humanity’s last
chance to turn things around manners are, understandably, a bit
frayed.
Bookish
etiquette buff Olive O’Malley is busy microfarming her urban
property and minding her own business (and her chickens) when the
government comes calling. Their goal is to push the populace towards
carbon-neutrality while keeping kvetching to a minimum, and they come
with a proposal: transition Olive’s popular etiquette column to a
radio show for the masses, and they’ll help Olive find her
grandfather, who’s gone missing.
Olive
doesn’t trust the hipster government officials who try to bribe her
with delicious-but-probably-a-little-evil chocolate pastries, and
declines their offer. (Politely, of course.) But they won't take no
for an answer, and soon Olive is knee-deep in turmoil, eco-terrorism,
and missing chickens. Now she has to untangle herself from their
demands and figure out how to make sure her family (and her poultry)
are safe before it’s too late.
Chapter
One—In the Land of Victory
My
superhero power is definitely not sleeping. When I was looking for a
house, my realtor rhapsodized about this bedroom’s perfect southern
exposure, about the tastefully herbaceous wall treatment and charming
old-world feel. Right now my room could be more accurately described
as a floral-wallpapered sauna, full of an impossible heat, like three
Julys stuffed into one. It isn’t helping.
I
watch the overhead fan stop again, gyrate, and then restart before I
roll over, the sheets coming with me. After a minute I shift to the
other side, flinging the covers away with a sigh. The fan finally
grinds to a halt, probably the victim of a wiring problem I haven’t
been able to pin down, although lately I’ve been thinking it might
just hate me.
I
relocate to the living room and angle the pedestal fan my way. God,
it’s hot. I close my eyes
and lean back on the couch for a minute, hoping sleep will take me.
The sofa is a faux leather hand-me-down that’s supple after years
of wear, smelling faintly earthy, soft against my skin.
Eventually
I switch the TV on. Our cable hasn’t worked properly in months, the
service so erratic it’s like the people running the company are
legless,
as my grandfather Fred would say—a charming Irish way of saying
spectacularly drunk, even though my grandfather hasn’t seen Ireland
since he was a child. My eyes land on Fred’s easy chair, a pale
green monstrosity he could barely squeeze through the front door when
I finally convinced him to move in with me. His pipe, his books, and
his old-man slippers are still where he left them.
After
flipping through a bunch of static, I shut the TV off and switch to
the radio, which promptly announces it’s five-thirty in the
morning. I ponder what to do next, discarding juggling, mind-reading,
and origami, although I spend more time thinking about mind-reading
than I probably should, considering I’m the only one here. Finally
I pull my computer tablet onto my lap and turn it on. I write an
etiquette column for a spunky arts and culture website, and my latest
instalment is due on Friday; other people’s problems are always a
delightful way to get my mind off my own. I start to page through the
letters, which all start with Dear
Olive. Dear Olive, I’m convinced my neighbour is milking my goat.
Dear Olive, my neighbour’s windmill is keeping me up at night. Dear
Olive, my wife is hoarding solar panels. What do I do?
Three
crashing noises erupt above my head, each more ominous than the last.
I wait for it to stop, but twenty minutes later I’m clinging to the
side of my house, staring down a pair of raccoons who seem intent on
defiling my solar array. For a long while it’s just the three of
us, locked in visual combat, but it’s my roof and unless they start
paying rent, they’ve got to go. Eventually they get spooked by the
noise of the six a.m. domestic surveillance drone overhead, which
would make this the first time I’ve ever been happy to see a drone.
I watch as it starts its first pass of the morning. They’re smaller
than the military version—sleek, modern, ever-watchful. Rumour is
they’re even biodegradable, although that hasn’t exactly endeared
them to anybody.
After
the raccoons finally lumber off I pull myself onto the roof and take
a look at the solar panel they’ve sullied, the wires connecting the
array to my house almost stripped. It’s not easy to carry out
rooftop repairs quietly at six in the morning, and it definitely
wouldn’t be polite to wake anyone up, but I don’t want to be back
up here tomorrow, either. If I leave the panel like this, they’ll
come back and finish the job,
I know it. They’re organized.
I look up when a new-fangled Town Car,
still boxy and authoritarian but now electric-powered, turns onto my
street. I watch it as it goes; there are almost no cars on the roads
these days, and the sight makes a faint sense of unease pulse through
me. I hope whoever’s in that car isn’t carrying bad news for one
of my neighbours.
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About the Author:
Maia
Sepp is an author of humorous contemporary and dystopian fiction. She
left the tech sector to write about sock thievery, migraines, the
future, and…the tech sector.
The Sock Wars is her debut novel. The first chapter of The Sock Wars was published as a short story/novel excerpt titled Irish Drinking Socks, and became a Kobo bestselling short story. The Sock Wars
has been a top-100 digital bestseller on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and
the iBookstore, as well as a genre and Writing Life bestseller on Kobo.
It is available in print and ebook formats.
Maia’s second novel is The Migraine Mafia, a story about a nerdy thirtysomething’s quest to come to terms with a chronic illness. It is available online everywhere in print and ebook formats. It has been a genre bestseller on Kobo.
Her latest is a humorous near-future dystopian novella, titled, An Etiquette Guide to the End Times, available now!
Author Links:
Website
Giveaway:
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