The Darkest Timeline

by Bram E. Gieben

Like Black Mirror on steroids, The Darkest Timeline issues 9 vignettes of doom in the form of theoretical essays that outline not the likelihood, but the certainty of our demise as a species. Taking into account an array of apocalyptic modalities, Bram E. Gieben shows us with sardonic wit and erudition that there may be no silver lining. We are left to choose how to countenance our demise.  The moment for bleak critical theory capped off with a wistful longing and silver linings has "... it is time to stop imagining alternate worlds, and confront whatever monsters are lurking in the basement."

Genres: Nonfiction

119 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 28, 2024

Reviews

[Brandon Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe the closest thing I have found to reading Mark Fisher. It’s an easy read, but the content is thought provoking and often troubling. There are a lot of references to works of fiction, some quite obscure, but enough context is provided that you don’t need to stop and go to Wikipedia, which you often had to do with Fisher’s work. And I’m more interested in diving deeper into some of these references than I was in the British pop music that Fisher was often using as examples.

[jess sanford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing has set my brain on fire like this book did in quite a long time. It pulls from wide-ranging but familiar constellation of references from William Gibson to Call of Duty, exploring the very notions of what a future is, and if it's even possible anymore. Nuanced, erudite doomerism, which can be hard to find despite how much of it flows these days.

[Laramzp · Rating 4 out of 5]

„ […] to wish for awakening is to dream of alternate realities
— to create,
within oneself, a simulation.“ changed me

„The only thing worse than having false hope is knowing that hope is false.“ broke me

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

As other reviewers have made note of, gieben shares many of the characteristics i ascribe to mark fisher - lucid, imaginative, sharp. Gieben and fisher share a stylistic kinship and a penchant for translating a parallax of perspectives of the contemporary world in an extremely digestible way. The essays are dark in many ways, yes. But they merely capture the dimensions of social reality that are typically dealt with cynically, structurally (in the academic sense), and, worst of all, uncritically. Gieben, on the contrary, is ‘critical’ in his theorizing as horkheimer understood the concept - a theory is critical insofar as it seeks “to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them”.

These essays stare into the dark abyss of contemporary life in its full nakedness and find, in it, the seeds of its own negation staring back, in the form of transformstive ideas and frameworks. Liberation is always contingent upon the events of the past and limited by the possibilities of the future. In becoming conscious of the two, we realize that the liberation in the present can only be relative; ie, in relation to sociopolitical world history.

Therein lies the realization that, for an individual like me, ‘absolute liberation’ is indeterminate and, thus, a farce of an aspiration. With it, however, is the realization that i have the freedom to act upon all which is relative to me - in my community, in my psyche…in all that due time is set to broach in my life.

4.5/5