Vow of Silence

From Publishers Weekly

Information overload sends a man over the edge in Laughlin's chilling debut. Karal Evender is only 15 when he arrives in Dreiden to be trained as a Datist. Karal's memory is so good that he's assigned to become a Cartist who helps preserve the world's knowledge for a manipulative organization called the Knowlodge. Although disappointed to learn his specialty will be toxicology, Karal nonetheless attains Cartist status and a job working for Superintendent Blixon, Dreiden's chief law enforcement officer. When he tries and fails to sustain a romantic relationship with Alenna, his landlady's daughter, the strain of knowing too much about poison and death leads Karal to a shocking decision. Laughlin uses a somber, dispassionate first-person narration that effectively suggests the gulf between knowledge and wisdom. (Dec.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description

"Vow of Silence" is set in an alternate society-described with its history, geography, economy, technology, laws, arts and civilization myth-in which literacy has not been invented because a substantial minority of people can be taught to develop perfect recall. The narrator is a man who was inducted into this special caste that records and passes on the permanent and ephemeral knowledge of the world. As his power matures, he realizes it is more a curse than a gift because he cannot forget disruptive memories of pleasant and painful experience--they are always with him. After he finishes the course of mental training, he perpetrates a devious and horrific revenge on his former teachers, to strike back at a society he feels has cruelly used him to service its needs. His personal regeneration is made possible only by a chain of events that also changes his society for the better.