A speculative novella by Ridley Park
“Behavioural autonomy is a fragile illusion.”
Overview
“Consciousness is the parent of all horrors.“
— Thomas Ligotti
Propensity is a speculative novel about the weaponisation of peace.
Set in a not-quite-now Earth, it traces the creation, deployment, and eventual collapse of a device that alters human behaviour—not actions, but tendencies. No mind control. Just a little nudge to make you less angry. More obedient. Less curious.
It begins clinically. Ends apocalyptically. And in between, it asks: what happens when obedience outlives orders? When peace persists without will? When modulation replaces meaning?
If it sounds like dystopia, it is. But not loudly. Propensity whispers. Flat affect. Surgical precision. Institutional dread.
Themes
- Free will as illusion
- Peace as compliance
- Drift, echo, and the limits of modulation
- Obedience without belief
- Institutional horror and soft dystopia
- Consent, control, and behavioural architecture
- Narrative as residue
- Collapse by calibration
Formats
📘 Available now on Amazon:
Also available in international Kindle storefronts.
United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and India
Book Club Edition available at Barnes & Noble
Press & Links
Ancillary PDF Content
- This page contains excerpts to support Ridley Park’s Propensity audiobook, which is available for free download to anyone. This PDF includes the following content from the physical book:
- Title page
- Copyrights page
- Table of Contents
- Chapter 10: Memorandum. This chapter is read in the audiobook. The inclusion here is for visualisation as it is rendered in the form of a memo.
- Chapter 26: Simulacra. This chapter is read in the audiobook. The inclusion here is for visualisation as it is rendered in the format of a screenplay.
- Chapter 28: Standard Test: This chapter is read in the audiobook. The inclusion here is for visualisation as it is rendered in the format of a standardised test.
- Chapter 34: Calendar. This chapter is read in the audiobook. The inclusion here is for visualisation as it is rendered in the format of a calendar.
- Chapter 39: Carnage. This chapter is read in the audiobook. The inclusion here is for visualisation as it is rendered in the form of a Dr Suess-type poem.
- Chapter 41: Leviathan. This chapter is excerpted in the audiobook. The inclusion here is for visualisation as it is rendered with an image of the cover of Hobbes’ Leviathan and redacted page content.
- Chapter 42: Ashes to Ashes. This chapter is read in the audiobook. The inclusion here is for visualisation as it is rendered in the form of text art.
- Chapter 43: Unknown. A description of this chapter is read in the audiobook. The inclusion here is for visualisation as it is rendered in the form of an ink sketch.
- Chapter 44: Vestige. A description of this chapter is read in the audiobook. The inclusion here is for visualisation as it is rendered in the form of text art.
Author
Written by Ridley Park—a name that sounds like a location, and perhaps is. Also the author of Hemo Sapiens and Sustenance.
Ridley Park 