The Departure: Block 17 (The Departure Cycle)

By Liam Jordan

In Block 17, every life follows a permitted route.

Joseph Townsend knows the rhythm of the city by heart: roll-call, ration queues, inspections, work assignments and the sentences repeated from loudspeakers above the streets.

Keep your head down. Follow the route. Do not ask questions the forms were not designed to answer.

Then a temporary reassignment sends Joseph into the Outer Streets, carrying supplies along roads most residents will never see. From the back of a distribution truck, the city begins to look different.

A routine delivery ends in a preventable tragedy. The official account bears little resemblance to what Joseph witnessed. Soon he begins noticing other discrepancies: missing minutes, altered records, sealed tunnels, forgotten access routes and people who remember versions of the city that no longer appear in its histories.

The closer Joseph gets to the wall, the clearer one thing becomes.

The city does not need everyone to believe its stories. It only needs them to keep following the routes.

But routes have blind spots. Records can be changed. And even the strongest wall has doors.

The Departure: Block 17 is a dystopian novel about surveillance, bureaucracy, grief, memory and the quiet decisions that turn obedience into resistance.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HP8D8354
• ISBN13: 9798160024745
• Release Date: October 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 268 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.7" x 6.0"