The Academy of Reality by Steve Putnam, available October 15, 2024, from Madville Publishing

The Academy of Reality by Steve Putnam, available October 15, 2024, from Madville Publishing

The Academy of Reality by Steve Putnam. Cover shows a multi-colored pigeon, with slightly wonky lettering for the title and author's name. Beneath this is a jumble of maps, hand drawn and architectural.

A quest for institutional survival, two subversive corporate employees, Sid Sidney a technician and Mia Monroe a would-be shadow artist, get caught up in the undertow of office-speak and bastardized metrics tracking printer glitches, insurance profits, lab’s birdseed expenses, and pigeons’ ping pong scores. HR makes things worse, tasking Sid and Mia to co-author an employee benefits booklet, Fifty Places to Picnic.

Mia’s bio clock and Sid’s world population clock blip in-the-moment numbers on tablets, a battle of Darwinian proportions. Although humans and pigeons already overpopulate the Institute, Mia wants a baby.

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