The Philodendrist Heresy

Jed Brody is a Senior Lecturer in Physics. His short fiction has appeared in Creative Loafing and an anthology of Science Fiction by Scientists. His essays have appeared in Physics Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and One Hand Does Not Catch a Buffalo: 50 Years of Amazing Peace Corps Stories: Volume One: Africa.He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin, West Africa, where he taught high school physics and chemistry. He studied solar electricity at Georgia Tech. As a member of a US-Tibet Science Initiative, he traveled to India five times to teach physics to Tibetan monks and nuns.He enjoys yoga, qigong, birdwatching, swimming, and reading, but usually not all at thesame time.

Danielle Gasket's search for ancestral secrets is imperiled by warring factions that agree about nothing but that Danielle must die.Danielle's home is a dystopian city beneath the earth's surface. People have lived underground for so long that knowledge of the surface is preserved only in dwindling communities of persecuted heretics. According to the heretics, a prophet called "the philodendrist" led people underground to repent for their violent conquest of the natural world.Following a string of clues while eluding pursuit, Danielle races toward the long-forgotten path of ascension to sunlight, relying upon her wits and valor to make it through. Finally, her mercy toward her fiercest persecutor convinces him to help her ascend to the pure waters of the sunlit world.The Philodendrist Heresy is a call for the preservation and resurrection of the great forests of the earth. "Philodendrist" means "tree lover."