Official Review: Chasms: Gospel of Freeman by G.J.O. Smith

[jhollan2]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Chasms: Gospel of Freeman" by G.J.O. Smith.]

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It’s the end of the world. G.J.O. Smith’s first novel, Chasms: Gospel of Freeman, is set during the death throes of planet Earth and ponders the question of what makes us human and what makes us worth saving. The setting is bleak, a world swung back to the days of Fundamentalist Christian oppression, where atheists, homosexuals, scientists, and any other non-conformists can be executed for the crime of dissension. The population has reached ten billion; global warming has decimated the ecosystem and is turning the world into a desert, causing mass extinctions. Smith’s future is a regression to the darker parts of human nature, fear and subjugation stifling forward motion. Racism, misogyny, and death camps are the creed of the theocratic United States of America. Any attempts to use science to terraform Earth or slow the planet’s decline are met with hostility and considered to be against the will of God.

With five years left before the planet becomes uninhabitable, only a small portion of the population fights for survival. Known as Aquarius, or Evolutus, they have formed a symbiotic relationship with an AI known as Soo Yun. Aquarius, with the help of Soo Yun, offers humanity a chance to become something more. With the staggering technology available to them, they can cure any sickness or disease; make people stronger, more beautiful, even immortal. A person being evolved can choose to look like anything from George Clooney to a green giant to a Elf. They can add fangs or tails or cat ears, make people strong enough to throw cars and fast enough to run down a speeding car. They can heal the blind and the deaf, re-grow limbs, and cure cancer. All for free. Their claims are largely thought to be the lure of the devil and they are dismissed as charlatans, leaving only the dying and the desperate to come to them seeking salvation.

Chasms: Gospel of Freeman follows a group of new recruits into Aquarius. The disparate group seems to have nothing in common, but a bond forms between them that lingers throughout their transformation. Bastion Freeman presents himself as a black gangbanger from the ‘hood, but is actually a wealthy graduate student mourning the death of his parents, on the run because he told his girlfriend he was an atheist. Tagia Yamamoto, a baby faced Asian man, has been crippled since childhood and made his living smuggling drugs in his wheelchair. Rosalin Klein is an elderly woman dying of cancer that grows marijuana for the Mafia and blows up her house before leaving for Aquarius. Christina Peterson is a Christian missionary come to save the heathens and a closet nymphomaniac. Father Russell is a dying homosexual Catholic priest and Rhiannon dresses as a Muslim woman, but was blinded and disfigured by acid in an accident.

To keep them safe in transition, they are hidden first in the Necropolis deep beneath the sea then on a secret base on the far side of the moon. As they transform and adjust to their new bodies and lives, they are linked to a neural interface that connects them to each other and to Soo Yun, allowing them to download information instantly on everything from combat skills to anime. The final stage of their training is a jungle island called Absurdity, a vibrant ark of flora and fauna in a dying world, beautiful and deadly. They soon learn that the enlightened society of transcendence and intellect has its dark sides and they struggle with shifting ideologies and allegiances. There are Evolutus who are working to tear everything down, those who seek wanton destruction and death to all the humans left on earth. Those who want the world, humans and Evolutus alike, to burn. Bastion (and his talking dog, of course) must try to stop them, without getting dragged down into the madness along with them.

It took me a while to get into the rhythm of Chasms. Smith writes in fragments and run-on sentences, with an interesting juxtaposition of word choices, with words like “critter” and “neck of the woods” alongside “oubliette” and “amicable reconciliation.” There are also a smattering of Shakespeare quotes and Bible verses, quotes from philosophers and films all jumbled together. Chasms is full of rants against religion and deep philosophical questions, sometimes at the expense of the plot. It was slow moving at times reading through all of the prose and thoughts and memories. The “human question” theme was very interesting, however, and a heavy philosophical issue.

Throughout Chasms, the characters struggle with the human question: what will become of the humans in the future when the earth can no longer sustain life? They can’t load 10 billion people onto a space ship, even if they had a space ship large enough for 10 billion people. If they could convince them to board the spaceship, how would they feed and support them for however long it would take to find a new planet, without them killing each other or starting a riot that damages the ship. Is it morally reprehensible to leave them behind to die, even if that is what they want? Is benevolent slavery, forcing the humans to cooperate to save them from themselves, a viable option? Without the humans, they could terraform the earth and remain behind. If the humans are going to die anyway, is it really so bad to kill them early? These are the questions that are raised and pondered by the fledgling Evolutus society, as they struggle to save a world that rejects their help.

I am giving Chasms: Gospel of Freeman four out of four stars. It is a lengthy book and not a quick read, but definitely full of fascinating characters and intriguing philosophical queries. Though it is written in the third person, Chasms is rife with unreliable narration, each perspective adding untruths and skewed opinions to the story that will keep you guessing until the end.

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[gjosmith]

Thanks! Awesome review, much appreciated! Sorry for the delay, just noticed this was up, been hammering at the next one. Thank you for your analysis, honesty, and speedy turn around time.

[kio]

Thanks, great review!

-- 02 Jun 2014, 21:01 --

Thanks, great review! I might try this one.

[ALRyder]

I'm so happy I read this review. This definitely looks like a book for me.

[H0LD0Nthere]

Wow. As a Christian, I am quite surprised to learn that I am the source of racism, misogyny, and death camps.

That said, the small group of Evolutus sound like fascinating characters. And though we are not facing their situation, there are many situations we encounter where we would like to save one or more people from a horrible fate, but the closer we look, the more we realize there's actually no way to do it without violating their rights.

Nevertheless, I think I'm going to give this one a pass. I doubt that I'd be able to slog through the rants.

[gjosmith]

Actually, that's not accurate. The book doesn't support the notion that Christianity is the source of racism, misogyny, or death camps by any stretch. There's no cause-effect argument that even tries. The book is all about gaps - the separation between word and action in hypocrisy, the gap between perception and judgments with reality, the gap between intention and effect, the gap between this era and the next, and the gap between what we are now as flawed human beings and the potential of what we may become that technology provides (or, if you like, a challenge to those that can believe we're both marching into a techno-utopian future yet with all our prejudices and racism and sexism firmly intact, each of which is a gap in perception versus reality).

Hence why the book is titled "Chasms" and not "Why Christianity is racist/misogynist/genocidal". A book that thematically illustrates the gaps between perception and reality while simultaneously painting Christianity with a singular broad-stroke brush with a straight face would be logically inconsistent and shoot itself in the foot. Instead of going against the grain of literally the entire book, Freeman's perception of religion are a demonstration at the very heart of the book's central themes.

Perceptions that are demonstrably subjective, questionable to the end about everything, and often deeply flawed. When the reviewer talks about "unreliable narration", this is one part of what they mean. Freeman comes to all sorts of conclusions, many of which are proven demonstrably wrong, and you, as the reader, are invited to pick through for veracity or bullshit based on whatever you want to believe. On one page Freeman will criticize his father's propensity for racist statements then turn around and make the same mistakes, sometimes only recognizing how he sounds when someone he despises makes the same sorts of arguments. A minor yet apparent and superficial example - On one page he'll caricaturize Christina as being frigid when the reader already knows she's very passionate (I object to the notion of some reviewers in other places call her a nymphomaniac, frankly). Other characters have their own ingrained prejudices demonstrated as false or questionable and a few have some success in overcoming them, others waver, one backslides, and some remain firmly in place. Unfortunately, much of this is subtle since any character that said, "And this is how I'm flawed..." wouldn't be very interesting or true to reality. People justify and try to convince and persuade themselves and others with all manner of mental gymnastics. Only in bad movies do people outright state their flaws and wear their hearts on their sleeves.

And this isn't about changing your mind on reading it, this is so other readers of these forums don't come to the same mistake. Ultimately, the only people I've known that read the book and came out thinking it was about berating religion were those either insecure in their faith or wanted the book to be about berating religion. Hence why I don't typically recommend it to Christians because too often they miss the forest for the trees. Others with true faith came to different and very interesting conclusions - One Christian read this as a critique of secularism and Bill Maher style atheism, an Evangelical read it as a sci-fi Rapture ("Left Behind" meets an anti-"Star Trek"), and both (and others) are more correct than attempting to frame the book as about dissing Christianity.
A techno-optimist will frame the book as utopian, techno-pessimists as dystopian, and both are right. Ultimately, you're going to see whatever you want to see, like any other "gospel". A violent person will bring violence to their religion, just as a racist will bring racism and a sexist will bring sexism.

Someone that actually read the book might come back and say, "Yeah, but the Christians and the beheading scene..." to which the obvious immediately comes to my mind: If I drove you to the most dangerous "black neighborhood" in the tri-state area and said, "This is what all black people are." Wouldn't that be immediately identifiable as racist? Yet people try to read that scene as evidence of the book supporting "Evil Christianity" instead of as Joseph Freeman literally crossing state lines to justify his position to his son.

To which that same reader might say, "Ah, but the Inquisition -" which is understandable but still not accurate to the book's world or themes. While the Evolutus are moving forward, the remaining Humans are moving backward (a widening gap). The Inquisition was part of history, hence its inclusion as a readopted social policy. The Humans have regressed to 1950's technology, exacerbated by feudal style inequality, reestablished a more primitive theocratic style government, and readopted archaic social controls that really have more to do with politics, power and control, and scarcity than religion - much like practically all of history. Freeman sees a world with complex problems and concludes, "All because of Christians!" yet people seem to want to take that as gospel when it goes completely against the current of the book. To try to make this more apparent, if Freeman concluded all the world's ails came from the Jews then it would be easier to recognize as anti-Semitic, yet everyone wants to take Freeman's words as literal since he's talking about Christianity. That's silly.

Suffice to say, if reading this review led you to believe Chasms is about framing you as the source of racism, misogyny, and death camps, then I don't think reading my book will be particularly beneficial to you. Enjoy whatever you decide instead.

[jhollan2]

Thank you for clarifying this. I have looked back over my review, and while I think I made it sufficiently clear that this is a futuristic society that is highly dysfunctional and therefore not reflective of our own time, I can also see how potential readers could be turned off by the use of a Christian society that is so barbaric. To be honest, it was a bit off-putting to me, slogging through the long, drawn-out explorations of some of the characters thoughts and feelings and beliefs. Also, Christina does come across as a nymphomaniac, even if that wasn't your intention.

[H0LD0Nthere]

Thanks for the clarification.

I have heard people say that "Fundamentalist Theocracy is on the march" or similar statements, and I think they do actually think that we fundies want to usher in a sexist, repressive society that would do ISIS proud.

I get that your book is a dystopia. Of course you will disagree with that statement, because you prefer it to be unclassifiable, but I gather from your description that it has a strong dystopian element to it. I actually like dystopias, and I can enjoy dystopias from different points of view. For example, I enjoyed both Agenda 21 and the two World Made By Hand books. I also get that a real-life dystopia can be ushered in by literally any group. We've had hells created by Christians in the Inquisition, Atheists in communist Russia and China, and pagans in ancient Mesoamerica. That's human nature, and it's always a very real danger, particularly when people set out to try to make the world perfect. But, given that there are literally infinite sources of evil for your dystopia, it is very telling to notice what group an author picks to usher in their particular societal disaster. It gives us a hint about what the author feels is plausible, what he or she feels is the biggest, or the realest, threat facing human beings in the future. So naturally, when you pick a Christian dystopia, that tells me something.

Regarding the allegedly nymphomaniac character, I am somewhat amused by the discussion. I find that male authors can be a bit ... unrealistic? ... when creating sexy female characters. Sometimes. Perhaps this is one of those times.

[gjosmith]

A Christian dystopia was selected because the United States is overwhelmingly Christian, and the principle characters are Americans. Would be pretty weird to have the US become a Hindu dystopia within a few decades. Even a Mormon dystopia would be a stretch. The "disaster" as you call it isn't a result of Christianity, but of the brain drain caused by the AI - hence, of course any nation is going to be a step away from a brutal theocracy when all the intelligent citizens jump ship for another nation.

And the book has both a utopia and a dystopia. Hence, back to the title, Chasms...

As far as Christina goes, she has a sex drive. Not even a particularly excessive sex drive just one that has been repressed/oppressed the majority of her life and when she finally has the chance to be what she wants, she takes it and enjoys herself. She has other thoughts and interests and pursuits that have nothing to do with sex, more than functional within her society, isn't encumbered or even particularly distracted by having a libido, and yet somehow is a nymphomaniac? Sorry, I just don't agree.

Maybe read the book before making presumptions about what might or might not be realistic?

[LivreAmour217]

jhollan2, you did a great job on this review. This book sounds interesting, but I'll probably have to pass, or at least hold off for a very long time. I've read quite a few dystopian novels lately and I need a break!