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    The Innocence Device
    The Innocence Device
    The Innocence Device
    Ebook81 pages58 minutes

    The Innocence Device

    By William Kowalski

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    The year is 2147. Chago, twenty-four, is a prisoner in a world made up only of prisoners and those who guard them. The only bright spot in Chago’s life is his son, Jim-Jim, whose mother is a guard. In an effort to resolve overcrowding in the prison, the warden introduces the Innocence Device, a high-tech machine he claims can determine innocence or guilt. Prisoners are encouraged to walk through the Innocence Device and experience its rewards: immediate freedom or death. When they discover the machine is rigged, the prisoners riot and take over the prison. After witnessing the execution-style death of the mother of his son, and surviving a brief stint outside the prison walls, Chago ends up in a position of power. But he soon finds the new regime little different from the old, and he sets out to save the only thing he values—his son.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateSep 1, 2014
    ISBN9781459807501
    The Innocence Device
    Author

    William Kowalski

    William Kowalski is the author of Eddie's Bastard, Somewhere South of Here, and The Adventures of Flash Jackson. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1970 and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania. He lives in Nova Scotia with his wife and daughter.

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    Reviews for The Innocence Device

    3/5

    14 ratings9 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This novella is tiny enough to easily read in one sitting. It is a young adult novel, appropriate for middle school students. The dystopian theme, with the world divided into prisoners and their keepers, might be very appealing to young teens. For adults or older teens, however, the story is much too simplistic to hold much interest.
    • 3/5
      This was a quick novella you can easily read in one sitting. With the popularity of dystopian novels right now, I feel like this is a book that would be popular with younger teens who are not quite at the reading level for books like Divergent or Hunger Games, but are interested in similar stories. I enjoyed the book, however, I found that it ended quite abruptly. It also seemed to end just a little bit too perfectly.
    • 3/5
      The Innocence Device is a short read, but packs a punch. With a quickly progressing storyline, Kowalski introduces Chago, a prisoner who's simple life is about to change. Chago is not a complicated man, he mainly wants to stay out of everybody's way and make sure his young son Jim-Jim never ends up in prison like himself - and almost every other male in America. In this futuristic society, greed appears to be the highest virtue. But Chago calls the prison slums home. His lack of ambition may first strike the reader as passive cowardice, but Chago soon reveals a bravery he was unaware he was hiding.Because of the book's short length, I found it refreshingly "no-nonsense'. It was fairly straightforward, but not lacking a certain sophistication. The dramatically cruel setting Chago found himself in serves as an ugly mirror of our own capitalistic cultures. However, I personally found the story unfulfilling. Altogether, it was not a bad read. It was fast but thought-provoking, and certainly well worth the short time it took to breeze through! I think I mainly wished it was longer, and I found it at times to be stylistically dry.
    • 3/5
      Its a well written, very short novella. I did feel as if it could have been fleshed out a little more, in terms of the world-building. And the ending felt a little abrupt. It is certainly suitable for teens and readers for whom English is a second language. I would have liked more detail and depth to the world, to how the hero made his way in the world with his son, etc. it just felt a little unfinished to me.
    • 3/5
      I think this story would be better classified as a novella or long short-story than a novel of it's own. It's quite short. I quite enjoyed the story, and I believe that it served it's purpose and made you think about guilt versus innocence, and, to a great degree, our own society today. When everything is a crime, everyone is guilty. That being said, as other readers have mentioned, I believe that the purpose of the story would have been better served by omitting the epilogue. Without the epilogue, the guilt or innocence of the hero would have been left as an exercise for the reader, as would the entire "is everyone guilty" question. Instead, we're given a pat ending. This is one case where neatly wrapped up ending is a let-down. It's like telling us at the end of The Lady or the Tiger which door the princess indicated -- it short-circuits the moral dilemma set forth by the story. Something that was great turns into something mediocre.
    • 4/5
      This book fell short of my expectations. It has a great premise, but is not as well-developed as it could be. The writing style is very basic - although the subject matter is clearly not for children, the writing style is more that of children's literature. Also, the cover blurb takes you almost to the end of the book, leaving little to be discovered in the reading. It's a great story with an excellent message that has great potential, but left me wanting more (and not in the good way).
    • 4/5
      Super-short, but of course, it's part of the Rapid Reads collection of books so that makes sense. Still, even though it's more of a long short story than a short book (probably about an hour's read), I really enjoyed it. It was overly simplistic, in part, again going back to the "rapid reads" but worth it. I think if the book would have ended one chapter earlier, it would have been amazing though.If you like to ponder philosophical quandaries, I think this book offers a lot to readers looking beyond the pages in front of them. What is freedom? Are we free? Is anyone free in this world today? Does Kowalski's world more than a century from that really offer a significantly different reality than today's world?Thought-provoking and interesting book to read and for anyone that doesn't like it - at least it's quick!
    • 4/5
      The Innocence Device by William KowalskiThis small book packs a wallop! I usually feel cheated if a story comes in under 300+ pages, but Kowalski jam packs an intense and compelling drama in this quick read. Set in the future, it echoes all manner of problems our current “throw-away” society faces today. It also manages to focus on Chago’s personal fight to survive and retain his sanity when there is no one you can trust. It haunts me with all its evil possibilities. Is there any way we can avoid this slowly marching progress into hell? Perhaps Kowalski will gift us with this knowledge soon.
    • 4/5
      Williams Kowalski's THE INNOCENCE DEVICE is a powerful little book. The story of Chago, a prisoner in a world where it seems everyone is either a prisoner or a guard, THE INNOCENCE DEVICE scathingly critiques a society — not dissimilar to our own — that has criminalized poverty and locked up the poor. What Chago does when he has the opportunity to escape underscores the power of hope and reminds us what real freedom means. I enjoyed this short novel and hope it will inspire everyone who reads it.

    Book preview

    The Innocence Device - William Kowalski

    THE

    INNOCENCE

    DEVICE

    OTHER BOOKS BY WILLIAM KOWALSKI

    Novels

    Eddie’s Bastard (1999)

    Somewhere South of Here (2001)

    The Adventures of Flash Jackson (2003)

    The Good Neighbor (2004)

    The Hundred Hearts (2013)

    Other titles in the Rapid Reads series

    The Barrio Kings (2010)

    The Way It Works (2010)

    Something Noble (2012)

    Just Gone (2013)

    THE

    INNOCENCE

    DEVICE

    WILLIAM KOWALSKI

    Copyright © 2014 William Kowalski

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

    Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

    Kowalski, William, 1970-, author

    The innocence device / William Kowalski.

    (Rapid Reads)

    Issued in print and electronic formats.

    ISBN 978-1-4598-0748-8 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-4598-0749-5 (pdf ).--

    ISBN 978-1-4598-0750-1 (epub)

    I. Title. II. Series: Rapid reads

    PS8571.0985166 2014    C813'.54     C2014-901573-9

    C2014-901574-7

    First published in the United States, 2014

    Library of Congress Control Number: 2014935367

    Summary: In a dystopian future where there are only prisoners and those who guard them, a young man survives an uprising and stumbles toward the freedom he’s never known. (RL 3.5)

    Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

    Cover design by Jenn Playford

    Cover photography by Getty Images

    www.orcabook.com

    17   16   15   14   •   4   3   2   1

    To those who have lost their freedom…

    remember that nothing can contain

    the human spirit.

    Contents

    One

    Two

    Three

    Four

    Five

    Six

    Seven

    Eight

    Nine

    Ten

    Eleven

    Twelve

    Thirteen

    Fourteen

    Epilogue

    ONE

    Long ago, in the twenty-first century, when people broke the law and were put in prison, they were kept in cells and not allowed to move about freely. The authorities took away the sunlight, the fresh air, the open spaces. Sometimes they even took away the company of fellow men. The largest of these prisons was called McDowell.

    As time passed, more and more laws were made. And more and more laws were broken. More and more people were sent to McDowell. Soon there were too many prisoners. They could no longer be kept in cells. There was simply no more room.

    So the jailers of JustiCorps, the guardians of good, decided to show mercy. They built The Wall around the prison and released the inmates to wander around inside. The inmates were still prisoners, still the property of JustiCorps. But now they could live more like those on the outside. They could breathe the fresh air, and they could feel the sunshine.

    At first they thought this meant they were free. But if they came too close to the Wall, they were shot. They learned to stay back. And they learned that their freedom was a relative thing.

    Over time more and more prisoners came to McDowell, until things got to be the way they are now. These days, most men in the world are in McDowell or places just like it. This is because almost everything is illegal. Talking back to a policeman gets you five years. Any kind of drugs gets you twenty, easy. Drinking and driving means life.

    Someone has to guard all these prisoners, which means most of the guards are women.

    It’s been this way for a very long time. No one remembers anything else.

    Inside The Wall, the prisoners made a city, because making cities is what people do. And because JustiCorps is good and merciful, they allowed this to happen.

    The year is now 2147. Today, as the early-morning sun comes up, the city the prisoners have made stretches in all directions, as far as the eye can see. The great Wall runs around it. Too high to climb over, too dangerous to approach. There are towers every hundred yards. The Wall is so big and has been there so long that no one even thinks about it, just as they don’t think about the air they breathe or the ground they walk on. No one even remembers what is outside. Outside The Wall, the world doesn’t exist.

    * * *

    The prison city of McDowell seems to fill the entire valley. There are many thousands upon thousands of houses. All of them are one-story high. They’re made of scraps of wood, clanging sheet metal or flapping pieces of plastic tarp. They lean shoulder to shoulder, like judgmental aunties at a wedding. Sometimes they collapse.

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