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Martyr
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:Making of a Revolution in a weird future
Threatened by disease and starvation, man had lived in the bowels of the earth. Mother Machine reigned as Monarch producing all children, performing all work. Man was satiated with all possible pleasures...but with certain expectations.
Then John Dearborne, respected citizen of Down Under went topside - and had a "peak experience" that he couldn't forget...an experience that would lead him to conspiracy, rebellion and worse.
:Making of a Revolution in a weird future
Threatened by disease and starvation, man had lived in the bowels of the earth. Mother Machine reigned as Monarch producing all children, performing all work. Man was satiated with all possible pleasures...but with certain expectations.
Then John Dearborne, respected citizen of Down Under went topside - and had a "peak experience" that he couldn't forget...an experience that would lead him to conspiracy, rebellion and worse.
160 pages, paperback
First published January 1, 1971
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February 16, 2014
It goes like this. It is long after the fall of the Greater Down Empire. A small number of people escaped the vast worldwide underground complex that nurtures and contains them The Machine Stops-style (think Wall-E...in fact go watch that movie instead), and now The Machine Has Stopped and the vast mechanisms and "toobes" of the Empire are now halted and full of the presumed dead. The survivors-slash-colonists occasionally mount expeditions back into the shallow levels to forage for necessary things.
As awesome as that story sounds, that's not this story. This story is actually told in reminiscence by the narrator and is about the actual fall of the Empire at the hands of John Dearborne.
The author was going for an allegory of the Christian experience--a journey to the wilderness before taking on his adversaries, disciples, martyrdom, a betrayer, and a message or image that lives on afterwards--but frankly it all is all such weak dishwater that very little has impact. The narrator is so ignorant of events that he is just a passive observer being led around by Dearborne, and any element that would make the allegory significant is either missing or subdued.
As awesome as that story sounds, that's not this story. This story is actually told in reminiscence by the narrator and is about the actual fall of the Empire at the hands of John Dearborne.
The author was going for an allegory of the Christian experience--a journey to the wilderness before taking on his adversaries, disciples, martyrdom, a betrayer, and a message or image that lives on afterwards--but frankly it all is all such weak dishwater that very little has impact. The narrator is so ignorant of events that he is just a passive observer being led around by Dearborne, and any element that would make the allegory significant is either missing or subdued.
Displaying 1 of 1 review