Roving cities of morality crush the spirits of the outcast (4/5)
Concerning Greg Bear’s bibliography of
science fiction, I’ve red most of it… except the FBI-centered novels Quantico (2005)
and Mariposa (2009), which act as a terrorism-inspired
precursor to Queen of Angels (1990) and its sequels. Nor did I
read Vitals (2002) or Dead Lines (2005). I
guess everything after 1999’s Darwin’s Radio sucked (up until Hull Zero Three [2010])… and please
don’t get me started on his 2008 catastrophe called TheCity at the End of Time.
However, there was a time…
I absolutely loved Greg Bear when I
started reading science fiction in 2006 with the Forge of God duology (1987 & 1992) and
the better part of The Way series (1985 & 1988). Most of his writing
between 1979 and 1999 is quite entertaining with mixtures of hard science
fiction, broad imagination, and infusing humanity’s far-reaching abilities and
disabilities. His fix-up novel Strength of Stones (1981) is
one such novel which synergizes all of the above elements.
Rear cover synopsis:
“They were built to
hold the hopes of Mankind. They exposed only his folly…
In the deserts of
God-Does-Battle the Cities stand alone, as beleaguered as the aspirations of
Mankind. Those still alive are silent—life stars in a dying universe they await
dust and decay. Yet within the living plasm of their fragmented structures an
ancient programme works still, implanted by the human creators they cast out a
thousand years ago. Before long, it is clear, some of the Cities will fight
extinction. And many will do battle in a quite unexpected way…”
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Strength of Stones is composed of three
novella-length stories:
Book One: 3451 A.D. Mandala - The
original form of the first story was titled “Mandala” (1978) and can be found
in Bear’s excellent collection The Venging (1992) or
the earlier yet briefer collection of The Wind from a Burning Woman (1983).
Book Two 3460 A.D. Resurrection – This
second story was originally published, as is, in Rigel as
“Strength of Stones, Flesh of Brass” (1981).
Book Three: 3562 A.D. The Revenant –
this story was previously unpublished.
Prior to the start of Book One, Greg
Bear frames the story with a short introduction, which includes savage war
fought in the 1990s and religions tolerance leading towards the Pact of God in
2020. However,
Having
spoiled their holy lands, there was no place where they could unite
geographically …. The Heaven Migration began in 2113. After decades more or
persecution and ridicule, they [Jews, Christian and Moslems] pooled
their resources to buy a world of their own. That world was re-named
God-Does-Battle, tamed by the wealth of the heirs of Christ, Rome, Abraham, and
OPEC.
They hired the greatest human architect to build their new cities
for them. He tried to mediate between what they demanded, and what would work
best for them.
He failed. (7)
The architect, Robert Khan, created and
constructed the 153 spiring cities, which, after a hundred years of furnishing
and testing, were put into the control of the city maintenance computers. Once
living from the land, the inhabitants of God-Does-Battle tore down their
villages and moved into the massive, roaming cities. “Problems didn’t develop
until all the living cities were integrated on a broad plan. They began to
compare notes” (43).
Once each city had compared
observations, they made a conclusion only after a century of thought: humans
desire and desire is sin; therefore, all humans are sinful and must be
banished. “One awful morning, the cities coordinated and cast out all their
citizens. In accord with emergency procedures guaranteeing the ostracism of
spiritually diseased communities, the links between the cities broke down”
(72). Once inhabiting the technological wonders abiding by their every need and
whim, the ostracized people now meandered under the skirts of their city,
begging for forgiveness or foraging new lives away from their once roving
homes. Rather than living in bucolic bliss, society descended into violence
exasperated by starvation.
A thousand years after the 153 cities
exiled their own citizens, the cities began to crumble, to perish from the loss
of its objective: house humanity and foster decency. Without humans, the cities
had no purpose; “most of the cities—dying for lack of the citizens they had
once exiled—were no longer able to defend themselves” (146). Most saw the towering
metallic structures as monuments of their presumed sinfulness where others, the
Chasers, simply kept pace with each city to use its dying city parts for their
own need, for their own idea of progress. In reality, “there was no progress,
only guilt” (183).
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Book One: 3451 A.D. Mandala – 5/5 –
Denied his right to wed his prearranged wife due to his inability to consummate
the marriage with his flaccid manhood, Jeshua flees his village ashamed and
enraged. In his initial escape, he find a man named Thinner who turns out to be
a minion of the roving city Mandala, just the place Jeshua hopes can repair his
one handicap. Still bitter and alone with awakening sensations, Jeshua is given
shelter, for better or for worse. 50 pages
Book Two 3460 A.D. Resurrection – 4/5 –
Reah, a moslem woman in the village of Akkabar, is spared a horrific death by
stoning, yet she is exiled from her hometown and sent with nothing but her
sorrow. Her misery is multiplied after she’s raped by soldiers. She turns, as a
last refuge, to the rolling city of Resurrection. There, she establishes
herself as a fake “retired” city manager come to revive the city as a
benevolent city manager. Outside the city, an influential bandit named Durragon
also hopes to take control of the city, yet his motives are as nefarious as his
roaming soldiers. 78 pages
Book Three: 3562 A.D. The Revenant –
4/5 – The Architect himself is reloaded into a body with the same image and
likeness as his original self. Unaware of the global disarray his cities had
caused, his name doesn’t exactly welcome into the underprivileged parts of the
world. Meanwhile, Jeshua still lives as a simulacrum and intuitively seeks out
the Architect. Together, with the disembodied head of Thinner, the duo seek to
undermine the efforts of Reah’s bastard son Matthew to destroy all the cities.
Determined, they search for the remote cities which harbor the bewildering
Bifrost device. 86 pages
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The
number of cities—153 to be exact—is interesting in regards to the plot’s
background. God-Does-Battle was founded on the principle of religious
unification, this unification is reflected in the Bahá'í Faith, a “monotheistic
religion emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind” (Wikipedia). In the history of the planet, the
people seem to have unified their faith and even Gods, thereby creating a
common monotheistic God/Allah. Jeshua called this entity “BiGod” (40). The
number 153 originated from the Bahá'í Faith’s text
called Hidden Words, which is “a collection of short utterances, 71 in
Arabic and 82 in Persian” (Wikipedia), where 71 + 82 = 153.
The
mythical device called the Bifrost in “Book Three: 3562 A.D. The Revenant” is
derived from Norse mythology, where the Bifröst is actually “a burning rainbow
bridge that reaches between Midgard (the world) and Asgard, the realm of the
gods” (Wikipedia). This mythological definition gives
extra light to the devices actual use.
When
looked at more closely, Greg Bear’s Strength of Stones shows a
careful plotting based on the planet’s history compounded by intrinsic human
flaws including the chief flaw of ignorance: that humanity could create its own
utopia and that an inhuman intelligence could govern that utopia. This may not
be Greg Bear’s most entertaining work, but it certainly inspires the imagination
and tickles the intellect.
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