Dystopia portrayed as Utopia
“Not your usual dystopian saga, Conquergood & the Center of the Intelligible Mystery of Being is highly recommended for its bigger-picture presentation of redemption and relationships that grow from adversity and self-inspection. Its inspection of the foundations of reality and the future of humans is thought-provoking and thoroughly engaging as Conquergood moves towards not only his brother, but a different vision of a new human influenced by genetic and social manipulation.”
~ D. Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
“Set in the far-future, Fewston’s original and deeply engrossing SF tale finds a young man struggling to locate his missing twin brother. It is 2183. The post-apocalyptic world has changed: the mega-corporate and governmental entity, the Korporation, governs the law. Jerome Conquergood is homeless, roaming the abandoned and crumbling skyscrapers of Old York City when he is invited to join the Korporation… Jerome’s journey to self-realization, which is hard-won, reflecting, and intricate, takes the forefront. There’s palpable tension and intrigue as Jerome makes his moves and gains knowledge about both the Korporation and his identity…
“The pace clips along nicely, and the small cast enjoys transecting character development arcs. Aside from Jerome’s ongoing story, Vincent’s storyline and the brothers’ family backstory add emotional stakes on top of the physical. The worldbuilding is authentic, and the intriguing theme, technological wonders, and spot-on relevance to present-day societal and ethical issues provide plenty of adrenaline. Fewston infuses the familiar genre tropes with raw urgency, keeping the reader guessing to the end. A must-read for morally serious readers of dystopia.”
“No pat dystopian adventure, Conquergood & the Center of the Intelligible Mystery of Being is intellectually challenging and absorbing. It ideally will attract the thinking sci-fi reader who appreciates not just a futuristic setting, but the moral and ethical quandaries faced by a protagonist forced to move out of his initial perceptions of his place in life in order step into the shoes of the enemy.
“This absorbing, engrossing story of genetic manipulation and a search for the ultimate human psyche will also ideally lend to classroom assignment and discussion for courses interested in philosophical and social dilemmas in sci-fi.”
~ D. Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
“Jerome Conquergood is homeless, roaming the abandoned and crumbling skyscrapers of Old York City when he is invited to join the Korporation as a member of the Turnkey Akweesitions Department. Despite his immense hatred for the governmental entity, Jerome gladly accepts the offer, hoping to locate his missing twin brother. The story starts on a stiff note but picks up momentum soon… The worldbuilding is authentic, and the intriguing theme, technological wonders, and spot-on relevance to present-day societal and ethical issues provide plenty of adrenaline. Fewston infuses the familiar genre tropes with raw urgency, keeping the reader guessing to the end. A must-read for morally serious readers of dystopia.”
“C.G. Fewston creates a story replete in social, political, philosophical and psychological depth and inspections that require slower reading in order to thoroughly absorb: ‘He often recognizes when a special moment comes to his life. When Time — or the energy and flow of that intangible but ever poignant system illustrated by ruin and decay — becomes fragile and still, Conquergood knows he should pay closer attention to the natural world around him. One of those times happened in the Old Central Park with the monarch butterflies. The other time is happening as he remains holding Klaire, uncertain of their two fates — and all the steps he has counted have become lost, muddled and gathered as one.’”
~ D. Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
“Conquergood & the Center of the Intelligible Mystery of Being is a novel set in 2183, where homeless outcast Jerome Conquergood wanders the post-apocalyptic world of New York City. His earliest memory is of awakening in the City of Old York with no family or connections.
“As long as he can recall, he’s harbored a hatred of the Korporation (a blend of business and political mega-entity) that controls his world.
“Forced to join this much-hated entity to find his missing twin brother, Jerome finds himself stripped of his name, identity, and life as the Korporation takes over and regulates him to the status of a lowly employee—and a possible future savior.
“As Jerome struggles with his new life and tries to maintain perspective and purpose, he enters a strange new world of elite living and unprecedented luxury, both of which serve as lures from his life connections and mission.
“His initial determination to stay his course (‘We are not what the Korporation makes us do,’ Conquergood tells himself. ‘Never will be, never have been.’) is shaken by these experiences. Readers will find many social and ethical conundrums arise as Conquergood becomes an initially unwilling part of the structure he so abhors.”
~ D. Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
In 2183, Jerome Conquergood is an outcast roaming the abandoned and crumbling skyscrapers of Old York City outside the Korporation’s seductive and dizzying headquarters, a post-apocalyptic security-city for the mega-rich.
For Conquergood, this is what the future looks like: a world in ruins where only the mega-rich can enjoy super luxury in their high-tech security cities located safely inside massive skyscraper-compounds sealed off from any who refuse to be employed by the almighty Korporation.
Despite his hatred for the techno-optimism and the Korporation (referenced from the social system of Korporatilism – similar to Vollert’s German book called Korporation Der Berliner Buchhandler which was published January 1, 1898), Conquergood is compelled to save his mysterious twin brother Vincent by joining the Korporation, a mega-corporate and governmental entity in a world oppressed to peace.
For the Korporation, the world is a well-crafted utopia.
Conquergood is quickly inducted and educated by the Korporate Elite and given a job as a Turnkey Specialist, where he is stripped of his name, since humanistic labels are considered repugnant, and discovers that the calendar has been cut short of the twelfth month and holidays, all except for the Korporate Rally.
The Korporate Ministers hold a ceremony to welcome their new employee into their folds and Conquergood is deemed as the Korporation’s new-found savior. “E Pluribus Unum!”
Conquergood (feeling an eerie repetition of events) begins his induction to the world of the elite and luxury. Then he meets Klaire, an enchanting bachelorette with a secret and ambiguous past of her own.
Within 24 hours of meeting Klaire in the Korporate Kanteen, Conquergood’s understanding of the world is further turned upside down when he discovers in the Korporate laboratories two doctors, Dr. Kin Russell and Dr. Sir Windsor VI, working on five young females in efforts to create the God Gene, an attempt to perfect humankind’s inner state of being once and for all through genetic manipulation.
The doctors are suffering from a setback on the experiments when Conquergood provides a suggestion which unlocks the psyche of one of the test subjects, known as Number Three, who later reveals herself to be called Zawadi, the ultimate Gift to Humankind.
In 2007, while in Vietnam, CG FEWSTON first began writing this futuristic sci-fi novel which questions reality and the destiny of the human race as it rushes forward into progressive technology controlled by a single corporation which owns the entire world. The first complete rough draft of this novel was finished in 2009.
E-book & Paperback out
The American novelist CG FEWSTON has been a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome (Italy), a Visiting Fellow at Hong Kong’s CityU, & he’s been a member of the Hemingway Society, Americans for the Arts, PEN America, Club Med, & the Royal Society of Literature. He’s also been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) based in London.
He’s the author of several short stories and novels. His works include A Father’s Son (2005), The New America: A Collection (2007), The Mystic’s Smile ~ A Play in 3 Acts (2007), Vanity of Vanities (2011), A Time to Love in Tehran (2015), Little Hometown, America (2020), A Time to Forget in East Berlin (2022), and Conquergood & the Center of the Intelligible Mystery of Being (2023).
Forthcoming: The Endless Endeavor of Excellence.
He has a B.A. in English, an M.Ed. in Higher Education Leadership (honors), an M.A. in Literature (honors), and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Fiction. He was born in Texas in 1979.
