Facts are have become matters of opinion
Our time is dystopian. Selfishness is called virtue. Corruption is the game and its name is politics. Freedom is now little more than a brand to be slapped on merch. Meanwhile machines scrape every minute detail of our lives so it can be categorized and sold to the highest bidder.
The forces of fascism are on the march. Our world nears an inflection point, where the facts and the alternative facts will wage war for the very soul of our people, on a battlefield where none will know what to believe. Whose experts are honest. If either side can be trusted.
They call it the post-truth era, and we have been plunging into its maelstrom for some time now.
When we can no longer rely on facts and truth where can we turn? Data? the endless calculation of the machines, beholden to their technoligarchical masters?
Where I come from, it is said that there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Aristotle said the highest form of knowledge was wisdom. The fusion of ethics, insight, and discernment. The offspring of empathy, experience, morality, and knowledge.
And it lives, not in the cold regurgitation of statistical machinery, but in the pages of allegory, the great stories of humankind. The wisdom of one, downloaded to another, through the experience of lives beyond where one could walk in their own limited time.
The Truth will not out without the wisdom to recognize it.
So, friend and countryman, I urge you. Dive into as many pages as you can and live as many lives as you can.
They'll give you strength and wisdom in the dark days ahead.
"This is not just a book—it’s an experience. One that will haunt you, challenge you, and ultimately leave you changed. A triumph of speculative fiction and a must-read for anyone who believes that stories still have the power to change the world.This is not just a book—it’s an experience. One that will haunt you, challenge you, and ultimately leave you changed. A triumph of speculative fiction and a must-read for anyone who believes that stories still have the power to change the world." -S.V.
Dane Sullivan writes dystopian sci-fi that cuts to the bone.
Raised in Appalachian squalor but landed in affluent west coast suburbs, wandering from mental hospitals and rehabs to university research labs along the way, Dane has seen America’s stark contrasts firsthand. That outsider’s eye fuels sci-fi laced with dark humor and cold societal critique.
As an engineer, he forges worlds where tech feels terrifyingly real. AI controls life, mega-corps rule, and ordinary people fight for their humanity. Critics call it "a savage satire" and "disturbingly realistic."
Inspired by Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick, his books are warnings disguised as thrilling entertainment, confronting the digital control we already fear.
Find him hiking remote trails or enjoying good bourbon. Dane Sullivan writes for readers who suspect we're already characters in a dystopian nightmare. And things are only just getting started.
"24th-century capitalism and life-draining technology have perfected a deeply dispiriting dystopia, but radical hope is still hard to kill, in Spreadsheet Cultists by Dane Sullivan, a prescient but ominous work of speculative fiction. When a half-educated machine intelligence engineer gets scooped up into the inner workings of a corporate police state, it's a job that could dramatically change his life, but also an opportunity for rebellion from within the belly of the beast. A savage satire of contemporary society and the dangerous path of technological dependence, convenient fascism, and humanity as an expendable resource, this cerebral piece of dystopian fiction shines an incisive allegorical light on the very real potential for a grim and greedy future."
-Self-Publishing Review, ★★★★
