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    Going Harvey in the Big House
    Going Harvey in the Big House
    Going Harvey in the Big House
    Ebook51 pages

    Going Harvey in the Big House

    By Douglas Smith

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Aurora Award Finalist

     

    The Builders had made the House generations ago, to shelter the remnants of humanity from the poisons of the Outside. The Inners, the direct descendants of the Builders, now rule the House. The House protects the People, and the Inners protect the House. And Smoothers are the arms and legs of that protection.

     

    Big G is a Smoother, ensuring that the daily activities of the House are not interrupted by "Harveys," citizens who suffer violent mental breakdowns in the claustrophobic House.

     

    But when Big G discovers a strange photograph of blue and white swirls of nothingness during a Harvey call, it leads him to world within the world he thought he knew—and a world outside it as well.

     

    Science fiction, dystopia, post-apocalyptic SF

     

    "Hands down, my favourite story … I've always been fascinated by the concept of a city that encompasses what we know of the known world. … Smith's version, the 'House,' is well conceived, but as always, it's his characters that drive the story. Big G is pitch perfect. Every aspect of his personality is just spot on. Though he's not a completely accessible character, portrayed as being not as intelligent as a more usual protagonist, he is completely there and three-dimensional and his reactions and motivations are plausible. It works! The ending is just right. It couldn't have been any other way..." —SF Crowsnest Reviews

     

    "I first read this story nearly a decade ago. ... The images and the power of the story have stayed with me all this time. That's one of the strongest recommendations I can give." —Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Award-Winning Author

     

    "Going Harvey in the Big House" fed into my natural fears, suspicions, and all-round disillusionment with authority. Thereafter, I began an inquiry. I read Orwell's 1984, Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Zamyatin's We, Huxley's Brave New World… "Going Harvey in the Big House" led me to places I thought I'd never be, culminating eventually in sweat-soaked nightmares about a post-apocalyptic world." —Cicada Magazine

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDouglas Smith
    Release dateJun 1, 2011
    ISBN9781928048022
    Going Harvey in the Big House
    Author

    Douglas Smith

    Douglas Smith is an award-winning historian and translator and the author of Rasputin and Former People, which was a bestseller in the U.K. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has written for The New York Times and Wall Street Journal and has appeared in documentaries with the BBC, National Geographic, and Netflix. Before becoming a historian, he worked for the U.S. State Department in the Soviet Union and as a Russian affairs analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He lives with his family in Seattle.

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      Book preview

      Going Harvey in the Big House - Douglas Smith

      Going Harvey in the Big House

      by Douglas Smith

      Aurora Award Finalist

      The Builders had made the House generations ago, to shelter the remnants of humanity from the poisons of the Outside. The Inners, the direct descendants of the Builders, now rule the House. The House protects the People, and the Inners protect the House. And Smoothers are the arms and legs of that protection.

      Big G is a Smoother, ensuring that the daily activities of the House are not interrupted by Harveys, citizens who suffer violent mental breakdowns in the claustrophobic House.

      But when Big G discovers a strange photograph of blue and white swirls of nothingness during a Harvey call, it leads him to world within the world he thought he knew—and a world outside it as well.

      ~~

      I first read this story in a workshop nearly a decade ago. Since then, Doug sold it to a number of different markets and it was a finalist for Canada’s prestigious Aurora Award. Now it’s out in e-book format. I read a lot, as you can tell, and I don’t remember most stories the next day, let alone decades later. The images and the power of the story have stayed with me all this time. That’s one of the strongest recommendations I can give.

      —Kristine Kathryn Rusch, award winning writer and editor

      Hands down, my favourite story … I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of a city that encompasses what we know of the known world. … Smith’s version, the ‘House,’ is well conceived, but as always, it’s his characters that drive the story. Big G is pitch perfect. Every aspect of his personality is just spot on. Though he’s not a completely accessible character, portrayed as being not as intelligent as a more usual protagonist, he is completely there and three-dimensional and his reactions and motivations are plausible. It works! The ending is just right. It couldn’t have been any other way...

      —SF Crowsnest Reviews

      Going Harvey in the Big House fed into my natural fears, suspicions, and all-round disillusionment with authority. Thereafter, I began an inquiry. I read Orwell’s 1984, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Zamyatin’s We, Huxley’s Brave New World… Going Harvey in the Big House led me to places I thought I’d never be, culminating eventually in sweat-soaked nightmares about a post-apocalyptic world."

      —Cicada

      Table of Contents

      DESCRIPTION

      GOING HARVEY IN THE BIG HOUSE

      ABOUT THE STORY

      A REQUEST

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      ALSO BY DOUGLAS SMITH

      THE HOLLOW BOYS

      THE WOLF AT THE END OF THE WORLD

      CHIMERASCOPE

      COPYRIGHT

      GOING HARVEY IN THE BIG HOUSE

      BIG G’S FIRST

      thought each wake time was how much he missed his drawer in his old sector of the House. His new cube was too big.

      Rubbing his eyes with a beefy hand, he sat up on his sleep shelf, ducking his head needlessly from habit born of years of waking in a drawer. Triggered by his movement, the ceiling tiles glowed to full brightness.

      Big G looked around his cube. Dull green walls. A floor covered with a grey coarse carpet. His private in-chute and dis-chute in the opposite wall, with a hidden compartment big enough to make his few personal items seem lonely lying inside. He shook his head. All of this luxury still made him uneasy.

      But what bothered him most was the size of the

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