I don’t know how to recover from this.

The story is set in America a few decades from now. The oligarchy won long ago and we are presented with a world of their making. All government services have been turned over to them. If it can’t turn a profit, they abandon it. NASA, libraries, infrastructure maintenance, only remembered in the distant past. Drugs that induce compliance. One drug that produces a peaceful euphoria and allows for a person, or large groups of people, to “search for a better place”, is eagerly sought for. Bookstores are illegal and being illiterate is boasted of among the compliant and/or deceived. But small communities are depicted in which citizens have turned to each other for support. In those communities trust is what holds things together. They use cash among themselves, though cash is illegal. They barter, trade and just plain give. It is a world beyond hope, yet two things are true: these small communities of light may be truer to the best of humanity than what they were before, and there is hope. There is hope. But make no mistake, while this world brings out the best in humanity it also brings out the worst and the worst most often seems to outweigh and outmaneuver the best.

These evidences of societal collapse are not mentioned as facts but are simply and naturally woven into the story, and the story is so riveting the casual reader might miss these details. So, this isn’t a story about a dystopian world; it is a story set within a dystopian world. For a frightening yet hopeful look at what our world could be coming too and the ways we might navigate it, you won’t find anything better than I Cheerfully Refuse.