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Human Error, Avery Werther

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

HUMAN ERROR is a science-fiction novel set in a future in which, to save the planet from environmental degradation, humans have been eradicated and replaced by “Syntho-sapiens.” These synthetic humans are engineered in labs to be not only physically superior to their evolutionary predecessors, but also equal in every way to each other. However, from the moment Cal-12 opens his eyes, he is different. He not only has heterochromia, a mutation of the eye color, but also a strong need for connection that his emotionless peers seem to lack. This need intensifies when he discovers a human woman named Thalia, …

The Death Of Superman, Shane F. Mcfarlane

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN is an autobiographical novel that covers the years from 7 to 17 in the life of Shane McFarlane, who struggles to overcome the effects of his inner-city environment and an addict father in and out of incarceration. The title is a metaphor for the decaying presence of the narrator’s father in his and his older brother’s life and the resulting consequences of that absence.

With the narrator’s father in prison, new threats emerge, including his mother’s ruthless boyfriend and his brother’s attraction to the allure of fast money. The narrator must ultimately make decisions governed by …

The Mango Snores, Michael S. Garcia

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

THE MANGO SNORES

by

Michael S. Garcia

Florida International University, 2021

Miami, Florida

Professor John Dufresne, Major Professor

Set in Miami at the start of the twenty-first century, THE MANGO SNORES is a seriocomic crime novel chronicling a week in the life of Sam Espada, Cuban-American writing professor and author of the Mango series of detective fiction. Reeling from the sudden dissolution of his marriage and the abject failure of his latest book, Sam finds himself embroiled in a plot right out of one of his novels when his newest pupil, private investigator Leonard Cobb, is …

Shadows Of The Morning Twilight, Philip A. Lapadula

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Shadows of the Morning Twilight is a collection of seven short stories and one novella about men who, facing transitions in their lives and in society, grapple with issues of sexual identity, residency, past traumas, and corruption. In the noir-influenced title novella, Nick Esposito, a mid-1970s journalism student, faces dangerous choices when he reports on the sale of a gay bar that is covertly owned by the mafia. Some characters see themselves as trapped. In “Final Score,” a former football player struggling with dementia finds a reason to live when he mentors a young gay man. In “Psyched,” “Phantoms of …