Book Reviews: The Electric Church
Since my last foray into the worlds of science-fiction I’ve discovered an appreciation for the genre I never realised I had. In the spirit of that appreciation I bring you The Electric Church by Jeff Somers.
The Electric Church is set in a future where the world has been unified under the control of the Joint Council. Humans being what they are, the change didn’t happen smoothly and most, if not all, cities are giant piles of partially rebuilt rubble. The police force is uniformly corrupt, as police forces are prone to become in totalitarian regimes. A new religion has sprung up and is threatening to take over the world.
I’ve said before, my major peeve with SF is that too many authors can’t resist turning humanity into some noble race which has moved beyond its petty differences and selfish urges thanks to the Miracle of Technology. Not so The Electric Church. People are dirty, wretched creatures whose primary concern is inevitably their own survival, followed closely by money. If the world was Unified tomorrow, these are the people who would be left. They’re not evolved, they’re not enlightened, they’re human survivors. Unless they’re Monks.
I can’t think of a single character I would call sympathetic. In fact, if I met any one of them in a dark alley I’d be surprised if I lived long enough to scream. But somehow they come together to create something I didn’t want to step away from. They were very much the underdogs, and who doesn’t like a good underdog?
Add to them a bunch of very creepy cyborg Monks and a pair of pursuers with the resources and the ruthlessness to track the protagonist anywhere he might choose to go. By the end of the book I was hoping a man I should have loathed would wipe both organisations off the face of the world.
The Electric Church is a great read if you like a good dystopia.