- Neovictorian [pseud.] and Neal Van Wahr.
Sanity.
Seattle: Amazon Digital Services, [2017] 2018.
ISBN 978-1-9808-2095-6.
-
Have you sometimes felt, since an early age, that you were
an alien, somehow placed on Earth and observing the antics
of humans as if they were a different species? Why do they
believe such stupid things? Why do they do such
dumb things? Any why do they keep doing them over and
over again seemingly incapable of learning from the bad
outcomes of all the previous attempts?
That is how Cal Adler felt since childhood and, like most people
with such feelings, kept them quiet and bottled up while trying
to get ahead in a game whose rules often seemed absurd. In his
senior year in high school, he encounters a substitute guidance
counsellor who tells him, without any preliminary conversation,
precisely how he feels. He's assured he is not alone, and that
over time he will meet others. He is given an enigmatic contact
in case of emergency. He is advised, as any alien in a strange
land, to blend in while observing and developing his own
talents. And that's the last he sees of the counsellor.
Cal's subsequent life is punctuated by singular events: a
terrorist incident in which he spontaneously rises to the
occasion, encountering extraordinary people, and being initiated
into skills he never imagined he'd possess. He begins to put
together a picture of a shadowy…something…of
which he may or may not be a part, whose goals are unclear, but
whose people are extraordinary.
Meanwhile, a pop religion called ReHumanism, founded by a science
fiction writer, is gaining adherents among prominent figures
in business, entertainment, and technology. Its “scriptures”
advocate escape from the tragic cycle of progress and collapse
which has characterised the human experience by turning away from
the artificial environment in which we have immersed ourselves
and rediscovering our inherent human nature which may, to many
in the modern world, seem alien. Is there a connection between
ReHumanism (which seems like a flaky scam to Cal) and the
mysterious people he is encountering?
All of these threads begin to come together when Cal, working
as a private investigator in Reno, Nevada, is retained by the
daughter of a recently-deceased billionaire industrialist to
find her mother, who has disappeared during a tourist visit to
Alaska. The mother is revealed have become a convert to
and supporter of ReHumanism. Are they involved? And how
did the daughter find Cal, who, after previous events, has
achieved a level of low observability stealth aircraft
designers can only dream of?
An adventure begins in which nothing is as it seems and all
of Cal's formidable talents are tested to their limits.
This is an engaging and provocative mystery/thriller which will
resonate with those who identify with the kind of heroic,
independent, and inner-directed characters that populate the
fiction of Robert A. Heinlein and other writers of the golden
age of science fiction. It speaks directly to those sworn to
chart their own course through life regardless of what others
may think or say. I'm not sure the shadowy organisation we
glimpse here actually exists, but I wish it did…and I
wish they'd contacted me. There are many tips of the hat here
to works and authors of fiction with similar themes, and I'm
sure many more I missed.
This is an example of the efflorescence of independent science
fiction which the obsolescence of the traditional gatekeeper
publishers has engendered. With the advent of low-cost,
high-margin self-publishing and customer reviews and ratings to
evaluate quality, an entire new cohort of authors whose work
would never before have seen the light of day is now enriching
the genre and the lives of their enthusiastic readers. The work
is not free of typographical and grammatical errors, but I've
read books from major science fiction publishers with more. The
Kindle edition is free to Kindle
Unlimited subscribers.
July 2018 