Deus Ex Machina

By J.V. Brummels

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553279777
• ISBN13: 9780553279771
• Release Date: March 1989
• Publisher: Spectra Books
• Length: 277 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Lyrical Soft Sci-Fi Leaves a Lingering Impression

The author is a poet by trade, and lives in the American mid-west. His book has been characterized by the question "What is a poet's place at the end of the world?". To me it's always been more than that. It is less than fifty years from now, and the Sun is going nova, soon to engulf the Earth and end all history. This is not spoiling the book; it's the last item in an intriguingly cryptic chronology that is one of the first things in the book. David Jones is a media author. It is the mid 2030's, and civilization is in the throes of a very slow-motion collapse. There are two types of people to the urban-dweller: those inside the constellation of the "New Cities" and those misfits who dwell in the shambling, largely deserted and somewhat-lawless suburbs. There may be people living in the great, forgotten spaces which once made up the countries of our global society, but those spaces have been forgotten, and have lapsed back into Terra Incognita. The weather, which is just unbearably warm, continues to heat throughout the novel. The joke on humanity is, they have turned so far inward that they only notice the change in the Sun when it is almost too late to do anything in response. Up just to the end, city life continues to continue pretty much as it does before. The book notionally has David Jones as a main character, but embraces an ensemble; The otherwise-nameless Commodore, an eccentric old sailor who supervises the "Rescue Effort"; his spit, polish, and starched second, Major Korsikhav; his other second, the iconoclastic Jeanne LaMer; Old Joe and Fletcher, two wanderers who live in the emptiness of what was once known as the American Great Plains; and David Jones' friends in the 'skirts-Preach, an old priest whose idea of religion has drifted away from the old rituals but still seems to have the right heart; Maybelline and Ms Kitty, his two "sitters" (read hookers) we meet at the beginning; and Lu, the ex-sitter who qualifies for a "housestead" (a latter-day attempt at recolonizing the suburbs) and for reasons not quite clear, David falls in love with, seemingly more than she does him. The technological response to the Sun's slow explosion is the Rescue Effort. Transmatation-the rendering of one's body into atoms, beaming them to a remote station and reassembling them-has long since been accepted as an everyday, though luxurious technology-think air travel in the early days of the world airlines. The aim of the Rescue Effort is to get as many people off the Earth as possible as soon as possible, and transmatation supplies the means-the ways require some roughing out. Those running the Rescue Effort make an effort to select as representative a fraction of humanity as meaningfully possible. David Jones comes to the Effort's attention and is enlisted. The central story is how he deals with the knowledge the world is coming to an end and how he deals with being selected as one of those saved. That in itself wouldn't make a complete story,

Not the best but a good yarn

In the future scientists discover that the sun will be going Nova soon. A desperate race against time ensues in which we attempt to create vessels for fleeing into space and preserving the race. David Jones, a happy go lucky writer and pimp, has become semi-famous with his novels. And now the world is coming to an end! But all is not lost. A new invention, a transmat booth, enables one to travel at faster than light speed. Calculations are set and a few of these are set off. Of course David gets invited and learns that during the flight - which may last for hundreds or even thousands of years - he will be only swirling atoms without a distinct physical shape. Only when they find a good planet will he materialize. He leaves behind the woman he loves and shoots into space as the Earth melts.