Luddite Stories

They won't even let her die Spencer and Alanah are neo-luddites who have as little to do with technology as possible. But when Alanah is in an accident her wealthy family aren't willing to let her die the way that Spencer knows she would want. The only person who can keep her from a fate worse than death is him, but does he have what it takes to say goodbye to his wife forever?

A colleague would arrive at my workplace some Mondays with evident cuts and bruises. A tragic case of domestic violence? No. He was a loyal fan of Millwall Football Club, a team characterised by its "historic association with football hooliganism" (Wikipedia). Did I overhear anyone comment that it might be considered inappropriate to work in a government quango when resembling the runner-up from five rounds with Mick McManus? No. Colleagues alleged that this young buck was untouchable because he held finance qualifications that his boss lacked, despite their requirement to legally sign off public accounts. That same boss was then promoted to personnel director, despite having demonstrated to me a similar skills deficit, and then to deputy chief executive of our organisation. Ho hum.

The Last Craft follows Elias Berwick, a once-proud artisan whose livelihood is destroyed by the rise of machine mass production. Forced to sell his father's workshop, he takes a job at a factory. There, he and his fellow workers come to the grim realization that their labor will eventually be replaced by the cold efficiency of machines. In the face of unemployment and despair, Elias joins the growing resistance-swearing to destroy the very machines that have stolen his craft. Inspired by the Luddite Movement and 19th-century worker uprisings, this steampunk novel delves into the origins and struggles of early labor movements. The Last Craft is set in Aelvos, a steampunk world of tyranny and oppression created by me. While technology flourishes with airships and mechanical devices at every turn, the common people see none of the benefits. Greedy and callous capitalists view workers as mere consumables-nothing more than raw materials in the production process. In this desperate world, the day will come when human labor is fully replaced by automated machines, and for the capitalists, the profits will soar, leaving workers to drown in the unforgiving tide of industrial progress.

In this post, I attempt to map Ben o' Bills through Voyant's tool "Trends."