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Sanity
Sanity
A secret society of the best humanity has to offer but no leaders, no followers, no formal structure, no written records...Have you ever felt like you didn't quite fit in, that the people around you are concerned with petty things, that they're actors in a play that doesn't quite make sense?Cal Adler does, until a mysterious new guidance counselor at his high school tells him exactly how he feels, and that he has friends he's never met. One day a woman strikes up a conversation on the college quad. And the real adventure begins.
- GenresFiction
284 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 11, 2018
27 people are currently reading
36 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 16, 2020
By turns thought experiment, James Bond (complete with martinis and a string of women), conspiracy theory, and private dick (complete with Irish whisky and a stunning dame), a Scientology send-up, a nouveau Illuminati, prophecy and advice, written in a bit of a disjointed style, this book was a helluva fun and thought-provoking ride.
October 30, 2022
Introduction
Cal Adler is a young man with the world at his feet. Having skipped a grade in high school and graduated valedictorian, a gilded path from the Ivy League to Silicon Valley or Wall Street is laid out before him.
But none of it interests Cal. “What I really want to do is go to Mars!” he confides in an eccentric teacher one day. Happily for Adler, his teacher is a member of a mysterious organisation which aims to colonize outer-space, or if that is impossible, to make earth as habitable as possible in the face of pervasive insanity. Cal is drawn into parallel worlds within parallel worlds. Streams of alternate realities begin to collide, leaving him to wonder how it all fits together.
Cal’s work with the shadowy group he calls the Outfit is thrown off course by the sudden killing of his best friend by an Islamic terrorist in a mall in San Jose, which unfolds near the beginning of the book. The shooter has links to hostile elements among American academia, sending Cal with his band of mavericks on a quest from the Nevadan desert to the ice caps of Alaska to neutralise the threat.
Style
This book is difficult to classify. The influence of science fiction is unmistakable, but the fact that this is not a work of pure sci-fi is in my opinion one of the novel’s great strengths. We have the sense of possibility—of what if?—of the genre, without entering a world unrecognisable to our own. In the best tradition of the New Wave of the 1960s, Neovictorian’s book is set in the next five minutes.
Sanity is breathless, primal, decadent. The author mixes souls, planets and sands from the Mojave Desert into a synthetic future cocktail injected straight into the mainline.
the sounds die and disappear, first the wind, then the car that just passed my house, the tiniest whisper of the city, my heartbeat that sounds like wind in my ears, the sound of my cells burning fuel.
If someone recommended a book to me that is non-linear, written in a sprawling, meandering style that counts electronic jihad and space travel among its themes, I would tell them I’m not interested. Yet Neovictorian’s book, which has all these elements, had me captivated from beginning to end. Sanity has style, skill and subversion. Imagination and humour. What more could you want?
Conclusion
One of the touching ironies of the book is the fact that a work of this quality is (whether or not by choice) self-published, yet another reminder of the sorry state of contemporary publishing. Neovictorian’s skill in rendering this ambitious and electrifying work in many ways resembles the scientific prowess of his novel’s hero. Some men—despite their abilities—are condemned to the backwaters, side-lined by the cosy intellectual stupor that characterises declining empires.
But there is a hopeful element here too. Just as Cal and his comrades forever arm themselves against systems ruled by insanity, like saplings springing through a cold gravel road, so too new life appears in the moribund world of fiction. Eventually, sanity prevails. Sanity is the proof.
Cal Adler is a young man with the world at his feet. Having skipped a grade in high school and graduated valedictorian, a gilded path from the Ivy League to Silicon Valley or Wall Street is laid out before him.
But none of it interests Cal. “What I really want to do is go to Mars!” he confides in an eccentric teacher one day. Happily for Adler, his teacher is a member of a mysterious organisation which aims to colonize outer-space, or if that is impossible, to make earth as habitable as possible in the face of pervasive insanity. Cal is drawn into parallel worlds within parallel worlds. Streams of alternate realities begin to collide, leaving him to wonder how it all fits together.
Cal’s work with the shadowy group he calls the Outfit is thrown off course by the sudden killing of his best friend by an Islamic terrorist in a mall in San Jose, which unfolds near the beginning of the book. The shooter has links to hostile elements among American academia, sending Cal with his band of mavericks on a quest from the Nevadan desert to the ice caps of Alaska to neutralise the threat.
Style
This book is difficult to classify. The influence of science fiction is unmistakable, but the fact that this is not a work of pure sci-fi is in my opinion one of the novel’s great strengths. We have the sense of possibility—of what if?—of the genre, without entering a world unrecognisable to our own. In the best tradition of the New Wave of the 1960s, Neovictorian’s book is set in the next five minutes.
Sanity is breathless, primal, decadent. The author mixes souls, planets and sands from the Mojave Desert into a synthetic future cocktail injected straight into the mainline.
the sounds die and disappear, first the wind, then the car that just passed my house, the tiniest whisper of the city, my heartbeat that sounds like wind in my ears, the sound of my cells burning fuel.
If someone recommended a book to me that is non-linear, written in a sprawling, meandering style that counts electronic jihad and space travel among its themes, I would tell them I’m not interested. Yet Neovictorian’s book, which has all these elements, had me captivated from beginning to end. Sanity has style, skill and subversion. Imagination and humour. What more could you want?
Conclusion
One of the touching ironies of the book is the fact that a work of this quality is (whether or not by choice) self-published, yet another reminder of the sorry state of contemporary publishing. Neovictorian’s skill in rendering this ambitious and electrifying work in many ways resembles the scientific prowess of his novel’s hero. Some men—despite their abilities—are condemned to the backwaters, side-lined by the cosy intellectual stupor that characterises declining empires.
But there is a hopeful element here too. Just as Cal and his comrades forever arm themselves against systems ruled by insanity, like saplings springing through a cold gravel road, so too new life appears in the moribund world of fiction. Eventually, sanity prevails. Sanity is the proof.
October 31, 2024
Sanity by Neovictorian, published in 2018, delves into a chilling world of secrecy and psychological suspense. The story follows Cal Adler, a high school student who feels out of place, sensing that life around him is staged. His sense of isolation deepens until a guidance counselor reveals that Cal isn't alone—he belongs to a secret society of like-minded individuals who reject conventional structures, leaders, or written records.
As Cal's journey unfolds, a mysterious encounter on a college campus leads him deeper into this elusive society, setting off a thrilling adventure. The book explores themes of identity, belonging, and the darker layers of societal structures, keeping readers gripped with suspense and questions of reality.
As Cal's journey unfolds, a mysterious encounter on a college campus leads him deeper into this elusive society, setting off a thrilling adventure. The book explores themes of identity, belonging, and the darker layers of societal structures, keeping readers gripped with suspense and questions of reality.
November 21, 2023
A compelling rehash of psychedelic self-improvement theories and hard-boiled tough guyness.
The author doesn't shy away from 'greatest threat to the West'-style Islamophobia which is strangely myopic for a book that places such emphasis on Big Picture ideas.
The author doesn't shy away from 'greatest threat to the West'-style Islamophobia which is strangely myopic for a book that places such emphasis on Big Picture ideas.
May 26, 2021
Sanity by Neovictorian is an esoteric and non-linear bit of applied psychology and self-cultivation. There is a story in here, an adventure story even, but it requires a bit of mental juggling to see. And that is very much not the main thrust of the book. It is definitely not for everyone, but it isn’t supposed to be.
The first chapter of Sanity starts with a bang! I think this is a good choice for a novel of ideas that nonetheless insists upon decisive action. The non-linear nature of the narrative works really well here, focusing in on a remarkable event in a remarkable young man’s life, and then slowly filling in the details and laying out a mystery that you want to penetrate.
And while exciting and interesting things do happen to Cal Adler, it is that mystery that is the core of Sanity. It is a mystery about the way the world works, or perhaps about the way the world should work. Nothing is baldly stated, in all cases the implications are left to the reader to puzzle out.
I have to imagine that the target audience is someone very much like me. Chronologically and in narrative order, one of Cal’s first experiences with the mystery that will dominate his life comes in high school. A strangely evocative man tells Cal that “no, you really are different than everyone else, and others feel just like you do”. A man with a message that intensity of learning and deepness of thought isn’t incompatible with also being a doer, fully present and aware in the world.
I certainly wanted something like this when I was that age, and I was attracted to books that gave me pieces of that idea. Growing up bright in a small town, or an unremarkable California suburb like Cal, probably produces quite a different experience than for those lucky few scions of the Masters of Universe, destined for power and wealth through family connections and access to the proper credentials. Sanity is about a world in which these things aren’t as important as they seem.
In our world, those things are pretty important. I can see the attraction of a loose coalition of wise and far-sighted men who act for the betterment of all mankind, but I’m very much a “there is no inner party” kind of guy. If it seems like the world is run by idiots, that’s probably because it really is.
Which isn’t to say that hidden movements don’t exist. They obviously do. They aren’t even really that hidden. Sanity is in a broad and even popular twentieth century tradition that is present in Campbelline science fiction, philosophy, and stranger stuff yet. On average, it probably shades slightly disreputable, or even embarrassing, in much the same way that millennial movements do.
Historian Carroll Quigley is famous, or infamous, for pointing out that Cecil Rhodes wanted to use his vast fortune to fund a secret society that would function as the Jesuits of the British Empire. There is at least some evidence that Alfred Milner and his friends and acquaintances did something just like that, although perhaps in a more lowkey manner than Rhodes initially envisioned. The associates of Lord Milner tended to be the famous and connected however.
On the less respectable end of the spectrum, the life of John Whiteside Parsons is an illustration of
Parsons founded what would become the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but he also dabbled in the occult and ritual magic. That wasn’t uncommon in Jack Parson’s circles, although Parsons was probably crazier than others who were associated with the Lodge in Pasadena, such a L. Ron Hubbard. Despite the irregularities in Parson’s life, it is clear that he was brilliant, and the ideas he was interested in also interested lots of other bright and ambitious men of his time.
Hubbard is now far better known than Korzybski, the creator of General Semantics, but in Parson’s day Korzybski was more influential on science fiction. Campbelline era science fiction like the work of A. E. van Vogt or Robert Heinlein bears the stamp of the ideas of Korzybski and men like him. Sanity lives in this same nexus of science fiction, real-world technological wizardry, and psychology so applied that it is hard to distinguish from ritual magic.
I’m not certain that this branch of psychology is prudent to practice. Like the tendency for certain types of meditation to produce dissociation, Korzybski’s ideas or those of his more popular intellectual descendants did not produce uniquely integrated psyches, but rather seems to have pushed a few sensitive souls into madness. Or at least blinded them to clear warning signs regarding free love and summoning rituals. It definitely didn’t do Jack Parsons any favors.
However, as a book, Sanity is something. Caveat lector, but it is pretty interesting.
The first chapter of Sanity starts with a bang! I think this is a good choice for a novel of ideas that nonetheless insists upon decisive action. The non-linear nature of the narrative works really well here, focusing in on a remarkable event in a remarkable young man’s life, and then slowly filling in the details and laying out a mystery that you want to penetrate.
And while exciting and interesting things do happen to Cal Adler, it is that mystery that is the core of Sanity. It is a mystery about the way the world works, or perhaps about the way the world should work. Nothing is baldly stated, in all cases the implications are left to the reader to puzzle out.
I have to imagine that the target audience is someone very much like me. Chronologically and in narrative order, one of Cal’s first experiences with the mystery that will dominate his life comes in high school. A strangely evocative man tells Cal that “no, you really are different than everyone else, and others feel just like you do”. A man with a message that intensity of learning and deepness of thought isn’t incompatible with also being a doer, fully present and aware in the world.
I certainly wanted something like this when I was that age, and I was attracted to books that gave me pieces of that idea. Growing up bright in a small town, or an unremarkable California suburb like Cal, probably produces quite a different experience than for those lucky few scions of the Masters of Universe, destined for power and wealth through family connections and access to the proper credentials. Sanity is about a world in which these things aren’t as important as they seem.
In our world, those things are pretty important. I can see the attraction of a loose coalition of wise and far-sighted men who act for the betterment of all mankind, but I’m very much a “there is no inner party” kind of guy. If it seems like the world is run by idiots, that’s probably because it really is.
Which isn’t to say that hidden movements don’t exist. They obviously do. They aren’t even really that hidden. Sanity is in a broad and even popular twentieth century tradition that is present in Campbelline science fiction, philosophy, and stranger stuff yet. On average, it probably shades slightly disreputable, or even embarrassing, in much the same way that millennial movements do.
Historian Carroll Quigley is famous, or infamous, for pointing out that Cecil Rhodes wanted to use his vast fortune to fund a secret society that would function as the Jesuits of the British Empire. There is at least some evidence that Alfred Milner and his friends and acquaintances did something just like that, although perhaps in a more lowkey manner than Rhodes initially envisioned. The associates of Lord Milner tended to be the famous and connected however.
On the less respectable end of the spectrum, the life of John Whiteside Parsons is an illustration of
how an international network of nerds was quite capable of instigating a technological revolution long before the invention of the Internet. The world's chief rocket societies were located in Britain, Germany, and the United States. They were part of a network that included the new subculture of science fiction, which communicated through the old pulp magazines.
Parsons founded what would become the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, but he also dabbled in the occult and ritual magic. That wasn’t uncommon in Jack Parson’s circles, although Parsons was probably crazier than others who were associated with the Lodge in Pasadena, such a L. Ron Hubbard. Despite the irregularities in Parson’s life, it is clear that he was brilliant, and the ideas he was interested in also interested lots of other bright and ambitious men of his time.
Hubbard is now far better known than Korzybski, the creator of General Semantics, but in Parson’s day Korzybski was more influential on science fiction. Campbelline era science fiction like the work of A. E. van Vogt or Robert Heinlein bears the stamp of the ideas of Korzybski and men like him. Sanity lives in this same nexus of science fiction, real-world technological wizardry, and psychology so applied that it is hard to distinguish from ritual magic.
I’m not certain that this branch of psychology is prudent to practice. Like the tendency for certain types of meditation to produce dissociation, Korzybski’s ideas or those of his more popular intellectual descendants did not produce uniquely integrated psyches, but rather seems to have pushed a few sensitive souls into madness. Or at least blinded them to clear warning signs regarding free love and summoning rituals. It definitely didn’t do Jack Parsons any favors.
However, as a book, Sanity is something. Caveat lector, but it is pretty interesting.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews