Book Review: Deus X By Norman Spinrad

Deus X By Norman Spinrad

Mass Market Paperback, 176 pages

Published December 1992 by Spectra

Reading this book for the first time in 2020 or after it will seem dated but like many classics of Science Fiction, it is important to remember when they were written. It is very important when judging this masterful short Sci-fi novel to remember that it was written and released in 1992 one year into Clinton's first term. Norman Spinrad is still with us and commenting on the world, he was even a guest on our podcast. Long lost writers like Brunner or Asimov often get credit for being ahead of the times. This novel is amazingly forward-thinking for the time it was written. Respect to Spinrad for that.

This review will be spoiler-heavy but it is somewhat hard to find book at this point and I think the most important thing this novel does is open up discussion of themes common in Science Fiction. Can we survive? and if technology saves us will we still be human?

Before I get detailed about this novel let me point out that this novel is in part a Climate Change novel, decades before Cli-fi was a literary movement, before many in the world admitted that this was a crisis or concern. Next, let's consider that this novel is also a work of cyberpunk, now Spinrad pokes fun at the literary movement that was inspired by his generation of New wave sci-fi writers. This is done when the narrator basically admits that he is in the fringes of a cyberpunk story.

Marley Phillipe is a cool character riding out the climate apocalypse with an increasingly robotic body and sailboat called the Mellow Yellow. His plan to die peacefully and get high. His plan is interrupted when the Catholic Church recruits him for a mission. You see the population of the world to escape the slow death of the run-away Greenhouse effect has created a virtual world called the Big Board. The idea is that most people have uploaded their minds to the Big Board.

This presents the catholic church with a conflict. They don't believe the cyber minds are actual souls but with the world dying they need to preserve their history. So they uploaded the memory of Father De Leone and his mind has since disappeared from the Big Board. The Church brings Marley to Rome to investigate, and he eventually learns that hackers are holding his mind hostage and their demands are simple. Recognize our virtual souls.

I read this book during the stay at home order of the Coronavirus it was impossible not to see similar nature to the Big Board. We have all become home units plugged into the internet which is becoming the social interface. This book takes place after Earth has become dead, the garden of Eden has thrown us out and the big question becomes is this new existence actually living? What if our cyber selves were trying to prove they had a soul?

This is a very provocative novel and amazing for the time it was written. This is a short and powerful work.

Consider this from page 135:

"Was this what God saw, if there was one, the whole wide world and all these space probes and sat-feeds besides, from the inside of Creation? Was this what Pierre De Leone saw from inside the system itself?

Deserted cityscapes. Entertainment channel Disneyworlds. Oceans Lapping against the great seawalls. Sat imagines of melting polar caps, spreading deserts. Eavesdropped videophone conversations. News Channels. corporate systems babbling to each other..."

"...Were these to be our Spiritual successors ?"

and two pages later...

"The World out there is dying. The world in here... From this perspective, it was all too clear. When the biosphere is gone we will go on."

Deus X questions what it means to be human, and what it means to be spiritual. The last barrier before humans can transition to a digital existence is the spiritual question. The great fear of this novel is a species taking that last step, one willing to destroy the planet that sustains itself can feel better about if their digital soul is one it can reckon with their god. Goddamn Spinrad wrote a hell of a novel here and when you consider how early into the internet we were at this point it makes it more impressive.

You should read it. Big thumbs up.