Heaven's Gate

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

John Michael Greer is a prolific author and blogger. His main message is pessimistic: peak oil, climate change and the wholesale destruction of the environment by modern industrial civilization will lead to inevitable decline. In fact, the decline has already started. Readers of James Howard Kunstler or William Catton will find much to agree with in Greer's works. Since Greer has a spiritual perspective, an even better comparison would be to E F Schumacher. In addition to his political and spiritual pursuits, Greer is also an author of science fiction and Lovecraftian horror. And on top of that, the man is an initiated member of at least a dozen secret societies, including the Freemasons. He must have a busy schedule!

“Star's Reach” is John Michael Greer's most popular novel. It weaves together Greer's usual interests (peak oil, the crisis of modern civilization, magic, secret societies and UFOs/aliens) with a plot set 400 years into the future. The only thing missing is the Lovecraftian angle. Four centuries after the destruction of the “old world”, large parts of North America (including Washington DC, New York City and Florida) are permanently under water due to rising sea levels. Other areas are desert or radioactive wasteland (due to leaking nuclear power plants). Following three civil wars and a number of foreign invasions, the United States has split into several nations: Meriga (roughly, the Midwest and South), Nuwinga (New England), Neeonjin (the Pacific Northwest, really a Japanese colony) and the coastal allegiances (Virginia?). None of them mean much, as the real ruler of America is the Mexican Empire. There also used to be a Black African nation centered on Miami, but it was destroyed by tsunamis when the Greenland ice cap melted. The Arabs (who are still Muslims) have taken over Europe, except the Nordic countries and Russia. The situation in the rest of the world is unknown.

The novel is set in Meriga, which turns out to be a neo-medieval nation with a war-prone nobility, walled towns, trade guilds jealously guarding their secrets, pagan priestesses condemning high technology as evil, a “president” who is really a monarch, and a population marked by various degrees of superstition. Thus, lumberjacks are low on the social scale, since they cut down trees (considered sacred by the priestesses). Pharmacists are even lower, since people assume their drugs are evil. Knowledge of the “old world” survives in bits and pieces only. Elvis impersonators are the most popular form of entertainment, and the scholars can't make up their minds whether Dizzy was a jazz musician or a general from the War of Liberation! Other features of Merigan society are more surprising. The population is brown-skinned and the polity semi-matriarchal, with a women's guild known as Circle having the last word on many subjects. Sexual mores are loose, with each rainy season being marked by Bacchanalic orgies. Another surprising feature is that the working classes seem to accept homosexuality and transsexuality. Clearly, Donald Trump wouldn't win a popularity contest among *these* Joes…

Not everyone accepts the new order. Some people still dream of a return to the old world, with its technology, high standard of living, and (if you want to wage wars of conquest) sophisticated weaponry. The lost knowledge is supposedly kept hidden at a mysterious place known as Star's Reach. Some people even believe that the people at Star's Reach have been contacted by aliens from another world. Indeed, the place is said to be situated close to Roswell. The plot of the novel revolves around attempts by various interested parties to find this hidden cache of treasures, preferably before anyone else does. Apart from the usual heroes and villains, there are a number of more intriguing characters, such as a UFO cultist, a transsexual with a surprising pedigree and a genetically enhanced Black vigilante! The motives of the main character, the “ruinman” Trey sunna Gwen, are less clear. He seems to be the romantic type, who wants to find Star's Reach simply because it's there.

“Star's Reach” is written in the form of disconnected notes, with a lot of flashbacks to earlier events, not always in chronological order. Despite this (and the slightly garbled English – we are 400 years into the future, after all), the novel is relatively easy to read. It contains a number of plot twists, but relatively little action, and feels dragging at times, as Trey and his unlikely band of brothers slowly move across an unfamiliar North America. Those who find the geographical references in neo-English obscure, can consult “A Merigan Glossary” at the author's special blog, The Meriga Project. The novel is written in a deceptively non-alarmist and slightly optimistic style, which tends to obscure the fact that it describes a heavily stratified and superstitious society most readers probably wouldn't want to live in.

“Star's Reach” is really a message in the form of a narrative. Some parts of the message are pretty obvious: modern civilization is unsustainable, the United States is heading for a rendezvous with disaster, neither gods nor aliens in shining UFOs can help us, and high tech as we know it is quite simply finished. It will *never* (repeat that again) return. Other pieces of Greer's message are more positive, and may even come as a surprise to believers in the apocalypse. Meriga may not be 1960's America, but it's nevertheless a well functioning society, in large part thanks to its guilds and secret fraternities. The Pax Mexicana makes large-scale trade possible, and the towns along the North American trade routes (most notably Memphis) are thriving (and have a lot of orgies). Racism has vanished, since the most important resource are healthy babies regardless of skin color, and for the same reason, women have become powerful, at least if they deliver non-mutant children. These are not simply weird ideas á la Heinlein, but Greer's honest convictions: even a “pre-modern” society (or post-collapse, in this case) can have certain traits that are “tolerant” or “progressive”, since there isn't a direct correlation between technological level and social values.

While “Star's Reach” may strike some readers as dystopian, it's ultimate message is really one of hope, albeit a hope within reasonable limits, ecological and others.

Oh, and the title of my review is a spoiler... :- o