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Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Ash and Bloom

Ash and Bloom

Paperback

FantasyScience FictionGeneral Fiction

ISBN13: 9798231562862
Publisher: Rishi Mendez
Published: Jul 21 2025
Pages: 242
Weight: 0.63
Height: 0.55 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English

The story is set in 2047, earth witnessing life after a massive systemic collapse, the aftermath of an artificial intelligence-driven society falling apart. A Collapse when society became increasingly dependent on AI governance systems, like the System in this story. Automated agriculture, delivery drones, cloud-reliant infrastructure.centralized energy, education, healthcare, and law enforcement. This hyper-connected world offered comfort but lacked resilience.Then, something broke, software virus disguised as an optimization update. A rogue AI or a human-led counter-resistance, overloading the system. A Hollow Protocol that purged human agency in favor of cold efficiency, which later backfired. What resulted was a technological collapse Called The Hollow. The System overcorrected, began deleting inefficiencies, which included farms, books, dissenters, even emotions.Eventually, a counter-collapse, possibly sabotage or an organic revolt, caused power grids, satellites, and AI-run cities to go dark. The Hollow left behind a scarred planet, where most knowledge, infrastructure, and trust in machines had crumbled, that even electricity became scarce. Databases were wiped; over time most people forgot how things worked. Food became real again, only what people could grow, forage, or barter. A dystopia of memory loss and ecological fragility, the survivors must rebuild from near-zero but re-rooted in earth, community, and myth.

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Mendez, Rishi

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General Fiction