The Realm of the Unbelief: A Parable of Epistemology (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780989116664)

What if you came to realize that your entire existence was not at all what it was purported to be? What if you came to realize that not only yourself but your entire civilization has been deceived? What would happen, then, if you were given the opportunity to leave your world and discover a completely different one? This is what happens to two young men in The Realm of the Unbelief. Giltlegard is a cold, foggy, steel city surrounded by four great walls, a city without natural light. However, as far as the Giltlegardians are concerned, life within those four walls is paradise, for they essentially have no laws to constrain them nor any other known civilization by which to compare themselves. One day, when a tall stranger mysteriously enters the city, informing the people that they are prisoners in their own world, miserable and ignorant, his news throws them into a pandemonium. Everyone is affected by this terrible revelation. Despite the panic, two young men not yet eighteen, Cornelius and Osgood, accompanied by a fifteen year old flower girl named Aza-liel, find a way out of the city and embark upon a difficult journey to find a village known as Port Fectia where all their deepest longings are supposed to be fulfilled. The Realm of the Unbelief is filled with fantasy and adventure, layered with philosophical undertones. It probes the questions of How is knowledge obtained? and How can we be certain that we have obtained it?