The Liberty of Heretics - Paperback

by Judah Elias (Author)

Yael is an acolyte in a sacred order that rules over the known world. She is on the verge of ascending to leadership but must first prove that her faith is unwavering. Doubt is not merely discouraged, it is deadly. Uncertainty is a capital offense. As she stands before her superiors to be tested, her certainty is shattered. The boundaries of the world she thought she knew are ripped open and she must decide whether to trust her god, or herself.

Will is an ambitious researcher whose radical ideas have earned him scorn among his peers. Ejected from the mainstream scholarly community, he is forced to embark on an expedition to rehabilitate his reputation. After accepting help from an enigmatic benefactor, he finds himself a political prisoner in a strange world where reason is subservient to dogma.

The Liberty of Heretics follows ten principal characters with overlapping points-of-view as they navigate an increasingly volatile environment where corruption, religious zealotry, financial instability threaten to bring multiple societies to the brink of collapse. The problems confronted by these characters are familiar: economic deregulation and inequality, failing democracies, and the distortionary power of ideology. Big ideas though they may be, they are conveyed through fast-paced interaction and glimpses into interlocking crises. It slowly becomes evident that global stability is not being undermined by happenstance, but by design.