The Children of the Earth that Was

In the not so distant future, the earth has been colonized by mythical minotaurs, an alien race. With their superior technology they have completely conquered the earth and the humans they view as lesser animals. Creating vast networks of farms, the aliens raise humans for food. Zee is a young woman living in a corral as one of the heifers. Her sole purpose in life is to give birth to children who are raised and butchered for food. However, on the day she is to be inseminated, she injures the bullaman (the man who, for all intents and purposes, rapes to impregnate the heifers) and is taken out of the corral to be killed. However, one of the minotaur Overseer's children takes Zee to be her pet. In their house, Zee learns their language. After five years, she escapes to live with the free humans who survive in colonies underground. This work is a post-colonial novel addressing themes such as: identity, dislocation, oppression, dominance, and colonization. There are other themes relating to feminism. As well, the not so subtle allegorical significance of the work, is a look into our very real capacity to eat meat from animals who are sentient. [Excerpt]I had never actually seen a dead body. Her gaunt skin looked leathery and stretched over her bones. Her eyes were dark, with black circles around them. At first, the other women stopped by to gawk at the dead woman, partly because none of us actually looked like her. I know I didn't. My skin was a nice pink and there was meat and muscle under it. When I pinched the skin on the back of my hand, it bounced back into place instantly. "Back away," a woman's voice commanded. Deborah, our leader, our teacher. She was older than us, like all our teachers had been. But her tone was always so stern. Women in our corral whispered that the teachers weren't supposed to be so disagreeable, and that Deborah was the exception, not the rule. Her hair was wispy and thinning, and I had no idea how old she was; I didn't care. Although, she was not so old that they had sent her to pasture, so to speak. I listened to her when I had to.