In the near future, a machinist, a monk, and a mesmerizer are looking for the Source of the universe, but among the ancient scriptures, they only find the devil ... Few humans in the future find the secrets of what words and sounds can do, for the Apocalypse and war have led them to evolve in mind and physique. Two of them end World War III with just a four-minute speech. Some say they did mass hypnosis. Others say it was their voice and will. Fifty years later in South Asia, KUSHA, a twenty-three-year-old machine-geek with social awkwardness and amnesia, tries to get the Devil’s Book with secrets of voice. But her idol of voice and everyone's beloved war heroes, YUAN and RUEM, are also after it for power. In a society that worships the evolved High Grades with voice, how you speak and which words you talk with is important. As someone who finds all solutions in books, Kusha thinks the secrets in the three-foot-long ancient book will teach her to speak mesmerizingly. She believes it will help her evolve. So, she decides to attend the auction where the book will be sold. But there's a problem; powerful High Grades want the book too. They want to code fate, rewriting the material world. They are undead, immortal mesmerizers. And being a philosopher, Kusha admires their ethics while she must fight them—the fight that starts with the book. The fight creates a chain reaction leading her to an epic journey. About the Series: THE HIGH AUCTION: WISDOM REVOLUTION is a book of genre-bending Adult Sci-fi-Fantasy series "The Machinist, The Monk, And The Mesmerizer Chronicles." Here, you'll find Metaphysical magic built around philosophy and spirituality. You'll find ancient mysteries, archaeological adventures, and, most importantly, you will meet some characters. Its inspiration was from myths/truth (read the word you prefer) of all religions where humans evolved to Sufis, Rishis, Sannashis, Monks, and sometimes, Gods. Example: Shiva Purana in Hindu epics where Sati evolved to Goddess Parvati and splits into Kali to destroy the evil is a prominent example. You'll find diverse cultures, sexuality, and faith in this series. Enjoy. What the Critiques and Reviewers are saying about it: "GEM PROSE ... YOU WILL FINISH THIS BOOK ONCE YOU START ..." "EXCEPTIONALLY THOUGHT-PROVOKING ..." "RELATABLE ... YOU KEEP NODDING AT EVERYTHING ..."

Relates the true story of survivors of a plane crash in the Andes.

Poetry. Fiction. Drama. African & African American Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. THE HIGH ALIVE: AN EPIC HOODOO DIPTYCH, published tête-bêche (head to toe), is made up of "The Light Body" and "The Utterances." Together, they take up excess and extinction in speculative lyric. Page is transformed into space for a performative prose in this mythopoesis of blackness and queerness, of return and foray. "The Light Body" surveys the spiritual architecture of the site where longing encounters memory, and grief allows survival, inside and against the reverberations of war. Noah and Micah return to their home in rural Mississippi, where the lovers call upon--SHU--, a manifestation of the owner of roads and doors. The lovers embark on a journey that takes them from home to the woods to the desert to the wilderness. In "The Utterances," The War that Settled Dust reorganized the city. One thousand years later, Theory of Bessie, a cult devoted to recollection--of fragment, of breath, of sound--invite us to consider the besieged body, family, city. Moving beyond apocalypse, Theory of Bessie, invite us to consider collective redress; claiming, that amidst ruin, there is always possibility. "THE HIGH ALIVE marks the print debut of an essential voice and vision. Carlos Sirah's 'Hoodoo diptych' as much lyric assemblage as dramatic innovation, works its choreopoetic roots to cast an indelible spell. Watch and read THE HIGH ALIVE, and you will get lifted too!"--John Keene "Thank all there is for Carlos Sirah. He is showing us ways through the inferno. His tellings are harrowing, unsentimental and beautiful beyond measure. Angels wrestle in the bellies of killing machines. Lovers, kin, and perfect strangers gather razor-edged fragments of memory to piece a pathway. We have been waiting for wisdom like this. Carlos Sirah's voice--by turns titanic and gentle--extends the redemptive project of legendary writers Robert Hayden, Henry Dumas and Toni Morrison. He invites us to reclaim the page and the stage as holy sites of witness and remaking. This book will rearrange you. THE HIGH ALIVE is a breathtaking and breath giving achievement."--Daniel Alexander Jones "You have to be willing to flow in the broken open form of this work--to say yes to your own imagination and freedom--to read what the silences in the line breaks have to say--to be open to getting shook by da Holy Ghost n dem. You got to be grown, and willing to honor Blackness/queerly to receive all that this book is. This writer gots swagga. Makes me want to cuss and twirl...and hold this book tight."--Sharon Bridgforth "This is Carlos Sirah's magic-true world. This is Carlos Sirah, who we will know for a long time through this unforgettable book. Staged in the mind as well as in the found world, this brilliant, devastating, necessary literature takes us way past easy understandings of war. Echo-dogs are seedpods and shadows and legs, and nouns grow into lovers, and stories turn into vital poetries of inbreath and takes on what we barely grasp, even as it happens through us. Being alive floats in fields of bodies, and we are alive as theories of staying that way. This is Carlos Sirah's war, taking things back from all missing things, to show us the breath on the mirror."--Thalia Field

Slavery is back. America, 1962. Having lost a war, America finds itself under Nazi Germany and Japan occupation. A few Jews still live under assumed names. The 'I Ching' is prevalent in San Francisco. Science fiction meets serious ideas in this take on a possible alternate history.