{"id":5163,"date":"2022-08-02T20:11:23","date_gmt":"2022-08-02T20:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5163"},"modified":"2022-08-08T15:17:59","modified_gmt":"2022-08-08T15:17:59","slug":"the-true-history-of-the-end-of-the-world-by-jonathan-lethem-john-kessel-james-patrick-kelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5163","title":{"rendered":"The True History of the End of the World by Jonathan Lethem, John Kessel, & James Patrick Kelly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The True History of the End of the World<\/em><\/strong> by Jonathan Lethem, John Kessel, & James Patrick Kelly (F&SF<\/em>, October-November 1995) opens with Chester Drummond, an ex-politician, taking a train to a \u201crefusenik\u201d farm for those that have not had the Carcopino-Koster treatments (these are never really explained in any detail, but have given the vast majority of the near-future human race an emotional stability and intellectual uplift that has radically changed society).
When Drummond arrives at his station he is picked by Roberta, a woman from the farm who has had the C-K treatment, and travels to their destination along with another new inmate, the charismatic Brother Emil Sangar.
After they arrive, Sangar, who wants society back the way it was, goes to see Drummond, who has similar plans. Sangar tells Drummond that there is a woman called Elizabeth Wiley at the farm who, after an accident, reverted to pre C-K state and did not want to undergo the process again. Sangar wants to recruit her as he thinks her perspective will prove useful (he describes her as \u201cthe Holy Grail\u201d). Later, the pair meet Elizabeth, who says she is in communication with the Virgin Mary (she says she gets messages in the veins of leaves), as well the farm\u2019s other inmates (one is an SF writer \u201cwho predicted this\u201d but \u201cmy books never sold\u201d).
Further on in the story Drummond learns from Roberta, to his surprise, that he isn\u2019t a prisoner at the camp and can leave any time he wants (she adds that there are only two C-K people at the camp and that they are there as helpers, not as guards). Roberta also tells him about a therapy class, and Drummond\u2019s subsequent visit there (most of chapter 5) is the highlight of the story, as it consists of some entertainingly demented one-liners and exchanges:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roberta opened the session by focussing immediately on the new arrivals. \u201cLet\u2019s start with you, Brother Emil,\u201d she said. \u201cYou were saying this morning that you wanted to be cured.\u201d
\u201cCured, yes,\u201d said Brother Emil. \u201cOf the coercion of the state. Of the tyranny of reason.\u201d
Roberta raised her eyebrows expectantly.
Allan Fence, the writer, quickly rose to the occasion. \u201cWhat coercion?\u201d he said. \u201cYou checked yourself in here voluntarily, Brother Emil. Of your own free will.\u201d
\u201cWhen we were neanderthals,\u201d replied Brother Emil, \u201cwe developed a taste for mastodon. You know how we hunted them, my friend? We\u2019d form a hunting line and drive the herd toward the edge of a cliff. Within the bounds of that line each mastodon exercised free will, yet today\u201d\u2014he waved at the window, which looked out over the fields\u2014\u201cone very rarely sees a mastodon.\u201d
\u201cNo, no, that\u2019s terribly wrong.\u201d Linda Bartly was upset. \u201cWe\u2019re not all mastodons, we\u2019re not all the same. They\u2019re like a hunting line, but what they\u2019ve crowded together is a flock of creatures: sloths, butterflies, leopards, loons, platypusses\u2014\u201d
Loons indeed, thought Chester.
\u201cthey want us all to be the same, but we\u2019re not\u2014\u201d
\u201cLinda,\u201d said Roberta, \u201cwould you like to tell the group what you see in Brother Emil and Chester\u2019s auras?\u201d She turned and explained to Chester: \u201cLinda sees auras. But not around those of us who\u2019ve undergone Carcopino. We\u2019ve lost ours.\u201d
Brother Emil held up his hand. \u201cIt will avail us nothing to become mastodons, certainly. But if we all grew wings together, the onrushing cliff would become an opportunity.\u201d
\u201cOr arm the mastodons with machine guns,\u201d said Allan Fence thoughtfully. \u201cSuitably adapted for physiological differences, of course. Trunk triggered, air-cooled fifty calibers with cermet stocks.\u201d
\u201cMr. Drummond\u2019s aura is huge,\u201d Linda Bartly stage-whispered. \u201cBig enough for all of us. But it\u2019s gray\u2014\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m interested in what the group thinks of Brother Emil\u2019s image of the wings,\u201d said Roberta. \u201cImplicitly, he\u2019s proposing to lead you, to turn you into his followers. He\u2019s not a man who gives up easily\u2014only last year he was preaching the end of the world to his cult on Mt. Shasta.\u201d
\u201cIt was postponed,\u201d said Sanger.\u00a0 p. 155-156<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the story (such as it is) concerns the manoeuvrings of Sangar and Drummond in their attempt to recruit the enigmatic Sister Wiley to their cause. During this, Drummond walks to Roberta\u2019s nearby house and ends up sleeping with her when she arrives to find him inside. At the end of this encounter she tells him that he can\u2019t change the world (and Drummond also later discovers that the explosive he has hidden in a bust in his room has been taken away).
Finally (spoiler), Elizabeth converts Drummond and Sangar to the C-K treatment (Sangar is told that he must take the treatment so he can save C-K souls), and we find that she intends taking the treatment herself, but only once she has convinced the last of the unconverted to do so.
This piece doesn\u2019t have the strongest story arc\u2014the ending, where the unreasonable are converted into the reasonable, seems rather unlikely\u2014but it works on an ironic level, I suppose. Nevertheless, it is an entertaining read, sometimes very much so.
I\u2019d add that it seems a remarkably uniform work given that it has three writers involved.
*** (Good). 10,900 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The True History of the End of the World by Jonathan Lethem, John Kessel, & James Patrick Kelly (F&SF, October-November 1995) opens with Chester Drummond, an ex-politician, taking a train to a \u201crefusenik\u201d farm for those that have not had the Carcopino-Koster treatments (these are never really explained in any detail, but have given the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1210,1209],"tags":[5,24,25,1213,2,1212,1211,7,688],"class_list":["post-5163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-james-patrick-kelly","category-john-kessel","category-jonathan-lethem","tag-5","tag-3-2","tag-fsf","tag-human-uplift","tag-james-patrick-kelly","tag-john-kessel","tag-jonathan-lethem","tag-novelette","tag-uplift"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5163"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5243,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5163\/revisions\/5243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}