Suburban Gods

Suburban Gods #1-2

by Brenda W. Clough

First SFBC Science Fiction Printing, June 2000. Includes two titles.

Genres: Fantasy

453 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I won’t say it was unenjoyable; it was, and that’s why the three star rating. What I can’t say is that I wasn’t disappointed. Like many of my hardcopy books (read non-kindle) I have had them waiting for me to read them for a while, and this one had a synopsis that always struck me as fascinating.
We meet an average modern Joe; a man named Rob Lewis, who has an average job in IT, a house with a mortgage, a wife with a better career than him, and twins that spend the week at day care. Rob hates his job, though he seems to like the cast of people he works with. Seemingly out of the blue one day, he finds he has developed the ability to read people’s emotions; then later, their minds. Soon he discovers in quick succession, by accident, that he can change those minds as well. He quickly realizes that he can make people forget things, or think new things, bending those around him to his will. He thinks he can be a superhero at first, curing mental illness, and turning career criminals into model citizens. But there is a dark side to this control, and that is his own emotions and subconscious thoughts. As his power grows what will he be, a god or a monster? That’s the synopsis. Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it? More occurs, and most of it after he flees his home and his family in fear his power is impossible to control and is affecting his children. He tells his wife not to worry about him (he had told her of his power), and wipes her mind of knowledge of his power. After running to New York, he lives as homeless man, bending others to his will when necessary. It is here he will read about a figure out of myth that seems to have been like him, and here he will meet his great true friend and confidant, Dr. Edwin Barbarossa, a microbiologist, who is as warm and trusting as Rob is guarded and careful with his friendship.
This is a rare occasion that I feel I may overstep into spoilers. So I will rely on the wonderful Goodreads people to hide them; but of course you know you can if you wish.
This book is really two books, and as such could almost be reviewed separately. The first book is How Like A God, and the second, Doors of Death and Life. I dare say the first is the better book, simply because I think it feels true to what I hoped to get from the book – albeit in a very mild way – and though I know that’s just a personal view, that’s what I am going with. What transpires is thus: Rob Lewis, after a chance meeting with Edwin Barbarossa in New York, in which Edwin gives Rob his card, thinking Rob is a down on his luck bum (which he does resemble at this point) and Rob pockets the card. Later Rob is appalled when while he is using his power to stay in the apartment of a now faded rock star, uses that power to rape the 14 year old daughter of the rocker. Rob stops himself before he can rape the teenager, but is shaken to his core by the realization that he can easily become a monster. Fleeing the city he finds Edwin, and tells his tale to him demonstrating his powers to Edwin to convince him that he is not delusional. Edwin and Rob embark on a journey to research and find out if Rob can learn to control his power so he isn’t a menace to his loved ones. This involves trips to Atlantic City to play black jack and find a way to tamp down any “leakage” of his mental power. He begins to find some success, before finding cryptic messages left for him in the astral plane that he finds he can enter in order to explore the world of minds that is earth. He and Edwin now believe the messages come from someone that has similar power to Rob, and the messages seem to say that he must travel to the site of an abandoned archeological dig on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. They have previously theorized that the titular hero of the ancient epic of Gilgamesh may have had the same power as Rob, and it seems more than a coincidence that this message from someone with those powers is calling from a land that Gilgamesh walked 5,000 years ago. Much time is spent with Rob and Edwin traveling to the former Soviet republic; eventually bringing them face to face with…Gilgamesh himself! Still alive after thousands of years. They realize that the epic that told his story was all true, with one exception, he never lost the secret of immortality. It is soon apparent that Gilgamesh is mad, and has given Rob half of his power so that he might have a kindred spirt to war for the world. Gilgamesh dispatches Edwin to kill himself, and after realizing Rob intends to betray him and leave, decides to show Rob the true extent of his power. They battle each other with Gilgamesh seeming the far more powerful, until Rob, realizing the disorienting effect that the modern world would have on someone from thousands of years in the past, changes the venue of their struggle to the New York of Rob’s mind. Taking the advantage he strips Gilgamesh of his power, both the power over minds, and the pearl of immortality. He races to stop Edwin from killing himself, but is too late, finding Edwin has thrown himself into a crevasse. Climbing down to Edwin, Rob sees that Edwin will die soon, and gives the pearl of immortality to Edwin thus saving his life and healing his wounds. With the extra power stolen from Gilgamesh, Rob now has full control of his abilities.
In the second book we find Rob back living a happy normal life, as husband and father, with a new job as a carpenter and home repair guy. Rob uses his power for a destructive purpose once again however, when he sees three teenaged boys assaulting and trying to rape his wife. He uses his power to command them to kill themselves. He is, once again devastated by his unleashing of his dark side. Meanwhile, Edwin, now immortal, is on the newly privately funded Moon base, doing research and dreaming of returning to his wife Carina (who he has told of his power, as well as about Rob) an archeologist. Rob has still not told his wife about himself. Circumstances force him too and when he does, she is crushed by his ability to lie to her, saying she cannot live with someone not 100% truthful. She wants a divorce, at the same time Rob has pledged to travel with Carina to Kazakhstan to interview the now powerless Gilgamesh. Rob and Edwin both fear Gilgamesh’s power might have returned. With both Carina and Rob emotionally vulnerable Rob tries to kiss Carina, but is rebuffed. They both discover that Gilgamesh is in fact dead; finally having succumbed to old age without his power of immortality. His last act, to build a walled shelter for the humble community of Muslim sheepherders that had taken him in.
Returning home, in short order, Rob reconciles with his wife, Julianne, and settles down only to find that his friend Edwin, while on the way back to the Earth from the Moon Base, has found himself in a spaceship in the midst of an accidental explosion and release of smoke and poison. The other three astronauts die and of course Edwin in a “miracle” as they are saying on Earth, survives. Edwin is soon not heard of and after some time Rob and his wife Julianne are told by
Carina, that Edwin told of his immortality, and not believing him, those at NASA believe he murdered his fellow astronauts in order to conserve air.
Rob rescues him, and they decide to tell the world the truth – about Edwin at least. They invade the office of 60 minutes and demonstrate that Edwin in fact, can heal any injury, does not need to eat, and does not need to breathe. The one detail they keep from the world is his agelessness, fearing the word immortality will stir up too much furor. However it seems that one of the millionaire benefactors of the American space program, Burt Rovillat, knows that Edwin is immortal, and that Rob and he are hiding something. A crazy man, thinking that Edwin is the anti-Christ, tries to kill him, and mortally injures Rob. Edwin, who obviously can just shrug off this attack, begs Rob to take the pearl of immortality from him, but it is too late, because Rob is unconscious and close to death.
Rob recovers, soon after Edwin finds a way to communicate with him mentally, telling him he is dying and needs to borrow Edwin’s immortality at least for a moment. It works, but later Edwin finds that millionaire Rovillat, wants in on whatever he and Rob have, and is ready to threaten, blackmail, and even murder to get it.
After his recovery, Rob easily deals with Rovillat, forcing him to burn all his blackmail material. Rob informs Rovillat that they can all start from scratch, while instinctively knowing someone like him could never turn the other cheek and let bygones be bygones. Rovillat rushes into his home where the papers on Edwin and Rob are burning and dies in an explosion. Edwin and Rob decide they must share the two powers now and then, and that someday they will reveal to the world Rob’s power, and that Rob needs God in his life. Rob begins to make his kids breakfast.
First things first. The writer Clough, seems to not be sure whether she is writing a fantasy or a science fiction story. Edwin believes that he can discover the changes to his DNA that allow him to be immortal, and give Rob the ability to shape men’s minds. However, at no point are we given any clue as to what if any results have come back from Edwin’s research. Gilgamesh is a figure straight out of myth, and characters regularly look at these powers – Rob’s in particular – as magic. I think her tale would have been better staying in either the modern fantasy vein, or totally in the realm of SF.
The writing itself almost feels like the writing in Fifty Shades of Grey. Now wait a minute what do you mean? It is strange that I would feel this way, because you wouldn’t think stories with a totally conventional and Christian view of life and happiness would have anything in common with that book. But it just feels like it. First, the writing here is…competent…enjoyable…much like the writing in Fifty Shades. Nothing amazing, no tremendous depth, just pleasurable diversion. I should add that these stories, have the veneer, the implication, of depth, without actually having it.
I also can’t help but feel that Rob’s dark night of the soul will need more than Christianity to sooth him. I also find Rob’s insistence that his power seems to be only good to do bad and destructive things annoying. I believe that Clough is missing a great opportunity to explore greater themes of free will versus the good of all. Rob’s insistence that he doesn’t have the intellect to make changes in the way the world works, for the good of all, is frankly, total BS. Rob is in fact an educated man, who has shown the ability to absorb huge amounts of knowledge. He is a voracious reader when he wants to be, and isn’t some mild country bumpkin as he sometimes seems to imply he is.
Lastly, the reason the second book is very much inferior to the first, is the fact that the antagonist of the second, Burton Rovillat, is a total lightweight who is out of his league, despite all his wealth and power, when dealing with beings wielding the power that Rob and Edwin do. It is unconscionable to take Rob and Carina back to find Gilgamesh only to discover he died a quiet and peaceful death. We are set up to expect something interesting, only to be told…fooled you guys, huh?