"Antumbra" by Paul L. Merryfellow

ANTUMBRA

Welcome to the ÜberCube! It’s the perfect society where everyone enjoys fun social gatherings every night; where everyone enjoys tasty, expertly balanced nutritious food; where everybody has a job and a home of their own, complete with the latest model EMILY personal helper to manage all those parts of life you don’t need to; where you can buy the latest must-have items and have them delivered immediately to your personal Cube the very second they are announced by the NewsFeeds! Angela had the perfect life in the perfect society where all of her needs were met instantly, and where everyone was perfectly happy. Only Angela wasn’t. Angela felt like a stranger in the ÜberCube where she had lived all her life, she just couldn’t understand why everyone else was so blissfully content while she alone dreaded the mandatory social occasions and the saccharine pleasantries they entailed.  That was until her only friend disappeared suspiciously overnight and she was catapulted into a journey of discovery leading her to the inevitable horror of her existence and the ultimate question: can she ever become truly free?

TOPICS OF CONVERSATION

• The Dystopian World – Controlled society in Uber Cubes, AI surveillance (EMILYs), and the illusion of comfort.
• Character Arcs – Angela’s reluctant rebellion and Gabe’s contrasting role and values.
• Themes of Control – Media manipulation, emotion suppression, and AI influence.
• Symbolic Elements – The mysterious Metacube and Kiddie Cubes as tools of indoctrination.
• Writing Process & Impact – The book as a cautionary tale, character-driven changes, and reader reactions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul L Merryfellow is a British-Irish author and software engineer based in London, UK. His love of science fiction stems from authors such as Ray Bradbury, Philip K Dick, and Douglas Adams, and he further enjoys a variety of authors in other genres, such as P G Wodehouse, Franz Kafka, and James Herbert.

Paul is a keen (though lousy) archer, and he spends much time examining the nuances of communication and societal norms through language and culture. He is a Licenced Lay Minister under the Church of England, a puppeteer, and plays the guitar, ukulele, and banjo (in various degrees of "terrible").

Paul is at his happiest when discovering something new and bizarre to investigate!

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