Pompiety: A Dialogue of the Damned

By John T. Van Stan II

Two literary ghosts walk into the afterlife. One has a cigar. The other brings a hammer.

Pompiety: A Dialogue of the Damned is a satirical graveyard exchange between contemporaries, Mark Twain and Friedrich Nietzsche, resurrected for one last reckoning on progress, piety, and the fate of a bruised planet. Through sharp dialogue and ecological critique, the two probe the limits of techno-optimism, dismantle the determinism inherent to science worship, and wrestle with the moral debris of modernity.

Their debate circles two forgotten virtues: pomp (a reclaimed respect for our species amid its self-loathing) and piety (a humility before the nature we've defiled). If humanity is to escape nihilism or ecological collapse, it may need both.

Written by a natural scientist and reviewed by scientists and philosophers, Pompiety offers more than clever banter, it's a compact, unsettling meditation on what we worship, and what we destroy.

Genre-bending: part philosophical fiction, part eco-satire, all conversation.Digestible but durable: a one-sitting read with weeks of afterthought.Illustrated: each act features stark, woodcut-style art.Ideal for: readers of speculative dialogue, environmental ethics, and irreverent intellect.

Pull up a seat with these gravefellows. The world may be ending, but the argument isn't.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0FF4JJ3S7
• ISBN13: 9798288661013
• Release Date: June 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 100 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.5" x 8.5"