The Levee’s Gonna Break

Part 1 of The Annals of Semiramide: The Levee’s Gonna Break Semiramide is a dark oceanic planet, oceanic because covered with seas so deep that their lowest layer is of ice a mile thick, dark by virtue of its troubled history. Part I of this dramatized version of the dark planet’s annaIs is set in a time when the multiple injuries and insults perpetrated by the humanoid inhabitants of the planet on the natural order have converged and reinforced, threatening to envelop all in a perfect storm of plagues, droughts, famines, rebellions and class warfare. The Part takes off on Eulalia, Semiramide’s largest continent, and is organized bicoastally for geographic clarity: On the desert East Coast, Rachel is on lookout from a spidery watchtower, responsible for detecting saboteurs who target the crucial water supply. Her counterpart on the malarial West Coast is Crispin, a newly fledged expedition oceanographer on his first and thus seasickness-plagued voyage. The intersection of the initially widely separated paths of the two young humanoids becomes the essence of the story of the first Eulalian Revolution, in its turn Part I of The Annals of Semiramide.