Within

Twenty generations ago, the Sun burnt the Earth. Men have been walled in ever since. Until a kid finds the truth.

In a world where sunlight is forbidden and truth is heresy, one young man’s curiosity will either liberate humanity – or destroy everything he loves.

For twenty generations, humanity has hidden in viewless corridors, told that the Sun above has burned all life from the Earth. Boz has never questioned the Tenets that govern every aspect of their existence – until he meets Mozart the Heretic, whose disfigured face tells a different story about what really happened to those who sought the truth.

When Mozart reveals that the surface world still thrives in secret paradise, Boz faces an impossible choice: remain safely ignorant in his prison, or risk everything to discover what lies beyond the forbidden exits. Driven by his love for Flox, a remarkable young woman from the violent outer corridors, Boz embarks on a perilous journey through pitch-black tunnels toward the mythical ‘Land of Without’ for a mission as yet unknown to him.

What he finds shatters everything he believed. The surface world is not only habitable but beautiful – a garden paradise where the privileged few enjoy nature’s bounty while millions remain trapped below in ignorance. But when Boz learns the true, appalling content of his mission outside, he must choose between the liberation of his people and the virginity of his own conscience. In a world where every freedom demands a sacrifice, how do you choose between love and justice – especially when you’re no longer sure which is which?

Author Biography

Alan Rhode is a former journalist, lawyer and digital entrepreneur from Italy, now living in the UK. Born in Genoa, a chilled-out town on the north-west coast of Italy, Alan spent many years in the more hectic Milan before moving to London, where he wrote his first novel, The Eagle and the Cockerel (2023), a geopolitical thriller that has stirred the curiosity of the public and media alike, establishing Alan as an exciting new voice in British literature.

His second book, Within (2025), is a post-apocalyptic thriller that delves profoundly into the often-conflicting relationship between man and nature, portraying a world where humans are secluded inside a maze of viewless corridors, longing for a no-longer existing natural world.