Ghostified City

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

‘Ghostified City’ is a post-dystopian sci-fi tale, set in a fading world that might be a future version of ours, running out on autopilot into oblivion. Adaman Yimmand is a simple robofactory operator in The City who's working with robots and machines every day. He doesn’t even realise that he might not have met another actual human being in years. Everything begins when he breaks his routine for once and enters a bar where he meets Evelith. This pesky other person does not let him go after he has had his -rather terrible- beer, because according to her actual humans are much rarer than he’s aware of.And from then on ‘the genie is out of the bottle and won’t get back in’, to use her words: Adaman meets more people, and gradually he has no choice but to accept that the reality of The City is not what he always thought it was, and to face the darkness of a fading humanity on the brink of self-inflicted extinction.Is there any hope left for him, and for his species?

I have selected 'sexual content' and 'traumatising content' to be on the safe side, because there is a stripclub-like venue in the background of the story, and an almost-extinct humanity that has institutionalised suicide which might be disturbing to some. Apart from that it's not really a heavy 'adult' story.('Ghostified City' is my first long story in English as opposed to my native language Dutch, and an earlier version was published on my fiction blog 'Oranderra' until I stopped updating. This is a slightly altered version of the first series.)

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2019
Author: bramcools

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.0/ 5.0
Followers: 13
Views: 23,256

Chapters(43 total)

Reviews

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Community Reviews(2)

Demas O'lichRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Review written after Part 1-
The story is dark and haunting look into the life and psyche of a reclusive man living in a world of robots and his reintegration into the world of humans. The story is well written with a protagonist that is believable due to his long seclusion.
There are elements of a Orwelian government, a possible resistence and a whole world that begs for exploration. If you like 1984, anything by Robert A. Heinlein, or an dense Sci-Fi set in a futuistic dystopia, I recommend this story.
VelaraRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
This is part of a series of reviews where I read the first 50 pages of the book and give a verdict on if I wish to continue reading.
Ghostified City is an interesting fiction, that explores a world where humans, and humanity is fading away, replaced with an increasing robotic and fake world. The result is a compelling piece of dystopian literature, which the authors explores through the evolution of Adaman and his awakening to the steady loss of the spark of human ingenuity. Both the characters and plot are intriguing, and the dystopian setting is fascinating and well crafted. But, ultimately the story failed to hook me, because I found reading it to be exhausting. Primarily because I found the prose unenjoyable. With that said, if dystopian fiction is at all up your alley, you owe it to yourself to give it a try, with any luck you'll find the prose less off putting than I and will be able to settle in to enjoy an intriguing piece of speculative fiction.
Favourite Part
The best part is the setting. The concepts at play intermingle into an interesting admixture, exploring ideas of automation, voluntary ethunesia, religion, media control and what it means to be human. All those interesting juicy elements that make for excellent speculative fiction, layered on top of a tight spatial location in the City and the unique culture of the humans living there. Though I will admit to finding the dealing of some political issues a touch heavy handed.
I'll also give an honourable mention to the characters, while I do have questions about how society and a person could fall apart over the course of a decade, to the point where people have largely stopped communicating altogether. But Adaman's character, as someone who had lost all of that is interesting, and the development towards re-discovering it is intriguing and doesn't feel rushed. The other characters he runs into are also a delightful contrast to him.
Least Favourite Part
The prose. I would describe it serviceable, it wil