We are all homeless gods

 

- I´m a rich White guy with an oil rig,
what could possibly go wrong?!

“The Hall of Homeless Gods” is John Michael Greer´s latest novel, published earlier this year. In one sense, it´s a departure from Greer´s usual output. The novel is supposed to be a hardboiled detective story, most of it set in a lawless town literally on the edge of apocalypse (as in rapidly rising sea levels). It also has more typical science fiction/cyberpunk angles – but they are atypical for this author. Equally atypical is the pessimistic streak. Greer´s novels are usually strangely optimistic even as they describe a post-apocalyptic future! I couldn´t help thinking that the story comes across as “Bladerunner without the Bladerunner”, or something to that effect. But in other ways, it´s a rather standard John Michael Greer oeuvre. Many of the characters are outsiders, some are affiliated with strange pagan religions, and the plot is set in a world marked by climate change, peak oil, radioactive fallout and other human-made disasters. I´m pretty sure two of the characters are based on the author himself (Fritz and Huddon). There are other similarities to the author´s own biography, too, none mentioned here.

The social and political commentary is surprisingly up-to-date, suggesting that the manuscript must have been finished just prior to publishing. One theme is AI and the bizarre hype around it. In the story, a team of scientists do succeed in creating an advanced AI…after a fashion. The glorious cyberpunk future turns out to be a great power contest to mine a supercomputer for spare parts, while the computer itself is connected to a quasi-artificial humanoid very good at basic accounting and poker…but little else! Clearly not the future we ordered or feared. Military drones are part of the plot too (they are more effective than the apocalyptic computer). “Year One” and “Planetary Unity” are a parody of the Woke left, with some traits of hippies and Hare Krishna thrown in for good measure. The idea of Wokies turning into a crazed cult doesn´t seem very farfetched, tbh. Then there are the Habitats, enormous floating cities off the North American East Coast. I´m not sure if they are based on some far flung idea by Elon Musk or Peter Thiel, but it wouldn´t surprise me.  There is even an “Event” in the novel. Somewhat surprisingly, it´s entirely natural: a disastrous volcanic eruption (based on a real one that actually happened 7000 years ago) which obliterates Japan and leads to famines and pandemics in the rest of the world (although Greer actually mentions this possibility in his non-fiction book “Atlantis: Ancient Legacy, Hidden Prophecy”).

What surprised me was the pessimism in the novel. To repeat myself somewhat, Greer has an ability to sound optimistic even in novels about a Dark Age future (“Star´s Reach”) or an attack by The Eldritch (“The Weird of Hali” series). “The Hall of Homeless Gods” sings a different tune. The universe at large is just as cold and indifferent as in bleak atheist visions. Even the gods themselves are affected. The Japanese mother of the detective forms a new religion dedicated to spiritually feeding those kami that became homeless when Japan was destroyed by the volcano. The character Huddon is positive towards Gnosticism and says that we are all homeless gods who forgot our true origins in the heavenly realms. The material world is depicted as ruled by brute chance, rather than by meaningful karma or destiny (Greer´s position in his non-fiction spiritual books). But sure, maybe this kind of “school of hard knocks” rhetoric is part and parcel of a hardboiled crime story…

With those reflections, I end this review. And the murderer is…nah, not the gardener this time!