The Ragpicker

Dane’s (Marigold Breach) latest post-apocalyptic novel traces a hero’s journey long after the fall of civilization. In Dane’s lyrically described world, most human minds are trapped in VR dreams, while nature has reclaimed the land in their absence. The Ragpicker is a Twitch, an entity bonded to a cybernetic “secondskin” who has wandered for over a century, accompanied only by the voices in his head. A young girl named Ysmeny flees her home, a village ruled by the fanatical military-grade Twitch named Server, to save a baby whom Server has orphaned. As Ysmeny and the Ragpicker look for somewhere she and the baby can be safe, they must avoid dangers, including the harsh wilderness and other murderous Twitches. As they travel, they learn more about themselves and the bizarre landscape that surrounds them. Narrator Catherine Ho embodies young and sometimes angry Ysmeny, while Rupert Degas’s monotone delivery creates a tragic figure in the Ragpicker, an augmented creature who is trying to remember being human.