This book was difficult for me. I felt like I lived two lives – one in 1925, another in 2025, trying to connect past and future.
Spent months building anticipation with those sepia photographs and cryptic quotes from Cain and Abel’s world. Partly marketing strategy, partly procrastination. Some stories resist being told.
The brothers started as business archetypes from our case studies. Visionary versus opportunist, ethics versus profit. But they evolved into something more personal. Family dynamics twisted by technological power.
Writing alternative 1920s required understanding how innovation actually spreads through society. The digital transformation modules gave me frameworks for realistic tech adoption. How would memory editing integrate into existing social structures? What resistance would it face?
Mneme technology had to feel inevitable, not fantastical. The manual formatting reinforces that – presenting fiction as documentation, making readers complicit in the device’s development.
My international business analysis coursework helped map the economic implications. How do you monetise memory? What market forces drive innovation versus regulation?
The psychological core remains unchanged: memory shapes identity. When memories become editable, souls become rewritable.
Cain’s moral descent mirrors every entrepreneur who loses sight of original intentions. Abel represents pure market exploitation. Brothers as opposing business philosophies made flesh.
This novel demanded everything I’ve learned about narrative structure, technology adoption curves, and human psychology. Four years of education distilled into one dark story.
Hope it disturbs your assumptions about progress and family the way it disturbed mine writing it.
Daria Ryzhikova Writer