Roll Call (Roll Call Trilogy Book 1)

Description

In 2067 the asteroid Jurbay severs the continent, amputating 22 western states, and submerging them into the Pacific Ocean in the course of a day.

In a world of brain-swappers, GEBs, the 14 Deadlies, and the tyrannical rulership of The Third, twenty-two-year-old Avery DeTornada hesitantly leaps into inherited leadership. It’s impossible to follow the footsteps of a deceased father—the founder who birthed the nation—or to discover a role model in a mother embedded as a subterranean in the ranks of The Third.

Avery finds leading a fledgling country everything she could imagine—a dystopian nightmare. On-the-job training proves treacherous and make-it-up-as-you-go tangles alliances, jeopardizes friendships, and exposes her poor love choices.

Riding high on the zip wires strung throughout the city and forging hidden routes in the tunnels of the History Labyrinth, Avery DeTornada raises up a rag-tag band of comrades—an army of dump-pickers, library boys, and minstrels to confront The Third and navigate the scars of a postapocalyptic world. There’s going to be a roll call—add your name to the list.

Reviews:
“Mansfield begins her new trilogy by dropping readers into a future that’s as propulsive as it is miserable. In marvelous, staccato prose, she describes Avery’s world as ‘Gray, The sky. The factory. The conveyor belt. The little pills that feed us, heal us, alter us—stabilize us.’ The GEBs are reminiscent of the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers but are used so cleverly here that they feel totally fresh. Although the novel is aimed at young adults, sophisticated jolts of turmoil charge the narrative, as when Avery has ‘lost the time to let beauty perform its work on [her] spirit.’ Overall, this masterful series opener is in better company with William Gibson’s Neuromancer than safer fare such as The Hunger Games. An exhilarating ride, full of sheer drops and whiplash curves.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Roll Call strikes at the fundamental nature of the human story. With humor, imagination, and gripping realism, Mansfield transports us to a world in which essential myths of our time play out and we are compelled to reexamine where we are as a society.” —Valerie Veatch, Director of “Love Child” (HBO 2014) and “Me @ the Zoo” (HBO 2012)