The Peace of Maine
Author
Steven Bennett
Author Bio
Steven Bennett lives in the Niagara Region in southern Ontario. For 20 years, he worked as an electronics technologist for Canada’s Air Traffic Control provider.
Steven is an avid reader with an extensive and widely varied personal library. Everything from literary fiction to sci-fi to quantum physics can be found in either paper format on his shelves, or in electronic format on his computers and other devices. It is difficult for him to point to a favourite author, enjoying those as diverse as Shakespeare and Steven Hawking. He feels that any well written book on nearly any subject is worth a read. Steven decided to try his hand at writing in early 2014. The Peace of Maine is his first novel.
When not reading or writing, Steven spends time on woodworking, or on working with Distributed Proofreaders Canada on making public domain documents ready for services such as Fadedpage.com. He also dabbles (with limited success) in computer programming using C++ or Visual Basic. He has also travelled extensively in the United Kingdom, visiting many areas of England, Scotland and Wales, including a few which are a bit off of the common tourist track, in search of anything of historic significance.
Description
The Peace of Maine is written in a future-history style. The main body of the novel is set late in the year 2099, and throughout the year 2100. This is more than two decades after a cataclysmic war has killed all but one in ten-thousand people on Earth.
The prologue explains that terrorist forces, not to very far in our future, developed the ability to launch nuclear attacks on the United States and the rest of the world. After many such attacks, several nations of the world agree to an inhuman and ill-conceived plan to deal with these attacks by utterly annihilating the home nations of the perpetrators of these attacks. However, this inhuman act leads only to greater hatred and vicious retaliation. After a devastating attack on Atlanta, The United States forms the Foreign Operations Force to crush terrorists both at home and around the world. Unfortunately, this force gains a reputation of shooting through anyone who stands in their way. The rest of the world comes to view them as a greater threat than the actual terrorists.
As tensions build, dozens of other nations form the World Protectorate, a unified army with the mandate of defending both against terrorists and against the American Foreign Operations Force. A nuclear arms race ensues that makes the 20th century cold war seem like a minor quarrel between schoolyard bullies.
In September, 2078, for reasons that the survivors will never know, the weapons launch, killing ninety-nine percent of the world’s population. Even worse, the nations launch biological weapons. Of those that survive the nuclear apocalypse, only very few survive the biological one.
One survivor is 12 year old Miranda Percy. She settles with about three thousand other survivors in a village which they call Maine – the last outpost of civilization in the state of that name. More than two decades after the war, peaceful and sleepy Maine is thrust into the middle of a battle between the remnants of two powerful forces, each intent on doing them harm. The people of Maine manage to mould one of these rump armies to their moral standards, then ally with them to defeat a greater evil.
In an examination of the nature of humanity – both its good and evil aspects – this book explores not the immediate aftermath of an apocalypse, but a time decades later when societies have reformed, only to be torn apart once again.
Book excerpt
The group milled about, socializing, having some hors d’œuvres. There was blackberry wine, as well as some liquor and fruit juices. Miranda noticed that each of the Protectorate corporals had a captain assigned to watch over them. Their chaperones kept them some distance from the crowd and away from the alcohol. She picked up a glass of blackberry wine for herself, as well as a second one, and walked over to Corporal Chester. The tall, young, and very handsome Captain Washington was watching over her, but he was compelled to yield when Miranda handed her the glass of wine. Miranda asked, “How long have you been in the military Corporal Chester?” She looked to Captain Washington and did not answer. Miranda turned to him and said, “You know, Captain, I think Ed Burdon, the chief of our militia would love to meet you. That’s him on the other side of the room.” Washington reluctantly departed. Miranda smiled at the corporal and said, “Well, we got rid of him, didn’t we. So, how long have you been with the military?”
The corporal replied timidly, “Four years, ma’am.”
“Oh, please don’t call me ma’am. I’m not in the military. I’m just a baker who also works on a council that makes some decisions, and sets some rules for the village. Call me Miranda. What did you do before you joined the military?” The corporal appeared not to understand the question and Miranda rephrased it; “Before you joined the military, what did you do?”
“I we was poor – we tried fish – fishing and sometimes did odd fish – or uh jobs, but we hungry. Li… Life hard ma’am-randa.” The corporal answered Miranda’s question with great difficulty, but she looked at Captain Washington on the far side of the room with every word. Soon, Major Stoker walked over. The corporal’s expression went from that of uneasiness to utter terror. She was trembling so badly that the wine sloshed over the side of her glass and the major removed it from her hand. She looked at the major, then to Captain Washington who was returning from the far side of the room. Finally, she looked at Miranda and her eyes seemed to say, “Help me!”
Sandra noticed the silent exchange and observed from a discrete distance. In a whisper, Miranda said to the major “This is much worse than just class differences, isn’t it?” The major furled his eyebrows in a look of defeat and gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Do you care to have a brief conference?” she asked. Another almost imperceptible nod. Miranda beckoned Sandra over, and the three of them stepped into the private council chamber while Captain Washington resumed his duties as chaperone to Corporal Chester.
The door closed, and for once, Sandra was actually the least informed person in the room. Miranda spoke with clear anger in her voice. “Corporal Chester was being watched over by Captain Washington. She would not answer a simple question about how long she had been in the military without looking to him. She was afraid of him and when you came over, she was absolutely petrified of you. Yet two days ago, she and several other soldiers acted like baboons in your canteen in front of Captain MacArthur and me, showing no fear of him whatsoever. We are not getting the whole story! If you want this alliance to succeed, we need to know what the hell is going on!”
…
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