Asbestos Head is the man

CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS!!!

“Asbestos Head” is not a book about the Hollow Earth, as erroneously stated by one of the other reviewers. I downloaded the work (it's free) in the hope of reading some entertaining stuff about flat earth conspiracies or the like. Instead, I was forced to sift through a short fiction story with an almost stereotyped “hippie” message.

Everything is subjective, everything constantly changes, Christianity and capitalism are authoritarian, love and sex should be free, why bother having kids, smoking weed and using psychedelic drugs is the way to go, live in the Now, love and forgive everyone unconditionally, meditate á la Zen, read Kerouac or Alan Watts…

Weirdly, this wasn't published circa 1967, but in 2008! I frequently laughed out loud when reading about Asbestos Head (the main character) and his weird friends Pin Head, Pot Head and Machine Head, to mention just a few. The hippie and love summer message is absolutely undiluted, making you see how absurd and unpractical it really is. Several characters are typical “misunderstood geniuses” or “INTJs” who come across as awkward and slightly autistic to everyone else. The solution to all problems seems to be to empty your mind and stop thinking altogether (or, I suppose, smoke weed). The anti-social angle is also obvious.

Interestingly, the short story has a misogynistic slant. The two women, Matriushka and Mary, are the two most negative characters. Mary (her name isn't a co-incidence) is depicted as a prostitute who once claimed to experience a virgin birth. Matriushka is a shallow promiscuous gossip who nevertheless demands “commitment” from Asbestos, who refuses and treats her to a lecture on free love. In the last chapter, Matriushka is locked up in a basement and apparently abandoned by a Zen monk! That a story about unconditional love and anti-authoritarianism turns out to be anti-female may or may not tell us something about the author's own “issues”. Another interesting fact is that Machine Head, who is a Cyborg and part of a hive mind, is treated as a positive alternative to humanity, although he too falls short of the true vibes of the Now.

What's the story *really* about? Presumably mimicking Robert Heinlein, the author reveals in the very last chapter that Asbestos Head is Jesus Christ who has returned to Earth to teach his true gospel. This presumably explains why his parents are named Joseph and Mary (the prostitute – note also the conflation of the Virgin Mary with Mary Magdalene), while Asbestos himself is said to be an “orphan”. Since Jesus-Asbestos turns out to be a hippie Buddhist, the world refuses to listen, prompting the misunderstood savior to commit Japanese-style suicide (seppuku) in the last chapter! Without this plot twist, the story would just be a long litany of pseudo-spiritual preaching for the eternally unsaved.

I was waiting for the Flat Earth /Hollow Earth material, so I admit I was somewhat disappointed by “Asbestos Head”, but I suppose you get what you (don't) pay for. The author Eric Dubay describes himself as a 30+ American living in Thailand where he teaches Yoga and Wing Chun part time while exposing the New World Order full time. His Youtube channel does include expositions on the Flat Earth, but also attacks on “Freemasons” and “Jews”, making you wonder how unconditionally he really loves his fellow men (or Cyborgs). But yes, if you're into conspiracy, I'm sure there's more where this stuff comes from…