The future is the past. Reviewing Improvidence by David Herod
There is a genre of science fiction I stumbled upon by way of John Michael Greer known as deindustrial science fiction. If you're not familiar with him, JMG is what I would call a collapsitarian - he was a key writer in the Peak Oil blogging movement and has called out many of the excesses of the current system in its approach to the natural world. Infinite growth on a finite world. JMG isn't just someone interested in the coming energy crisis though, he's written fiction books himself and it was through his website I found myself on 'Into the Ruins'.
Into the Ruins was a 'Deindustrial Fiction Quarterly' - their own description is perhaps most apt to share
"Into the Ruins is a deindustrial science fiction quarterly focused on publishing speculative fiction that explores a future defined by natural limits, energy and resource depletion, industrial decline, climate change, and other consequences stemming from the reckless and shortsighted exploitation of our planet, and to imagine the ways that humans will adapt, survive, live, die, and thrive within this future. Simply put, we are looking to publish the best in deindustrial, post-industrial, and post-peak science fiction."
I purchased and downloaded a number of issues and was pleasantly surprised. Most of the short stories I read were of high quality and imaginative. Most were also pleasantly free of too much ideological baggage, with a few notable exceptions of course. The magazine has since folded and been replaced but the premise of the future as not a glorious one but rather a collapsing confused place is an interesting premise. It is subtly different from post apocalyptic fiction and art which centres around the moment after. That genre has had its day in the sun with everything from video games like Fall-Out to the Wool series in books and now on screen and it bumps along the edges of other sub genres like Zombie Apocalypse. This deindustrial genre is the more thoughtful and less fanciful version and David Herod's short novel Improvidence is right at home here.
Improvidence is not a long read but it is certainly an enjoyable one and for anyone who sees the future and far future as more unstable than stable this is a worthy addition to their bookshelf. Herod's story is a quintessential coming of age in the wilderness tale, a journey. These stories are some of the oldest we have in our canon - the Odyssey being the most prominent. Herod's vision is of course not as grandiose as Homer's and has a more 'coming of age' feel than Odysseus's tale does (he was already a King).
What is so easy to mess up in short novels is the world building, especially when you are undertaking an ambitious subject such as the far future of US. In many ways it is what is left out that shines and Herod seems to understand this. He is never at pains to cheaply explain the world he has created, we are witness to it through the eyes of the protagonist and so much is left open to wonder. Filling in the gaps and piecing clues together is part of the fun of this organic world building and of course being set in the far future where knowledge is shaky this buys some space as well. Space to think and muse on what could have happened.
You can't just have space though, it has to be anchored and grounded. Herod achieves this with keeping just enough of America around. Smartly in his deindustrial world we still have an understanding of States and so our hero is from Ohio, heading to Virginia. Appalachia is a term still in common parlance and the destination 'Harper's Ferry' is also well known. Our protagonist has a bit of a stumbling start but once underway on his journey the novel picks up. Herod paints the world well but I couldn't help feeling there was a bit more of an opportunity for dialog between our two journeymen. There are a few moments however that break my disbelief in the world, largely centered around the scale and power of this state of Ohio. It doesn't quite make sense to me that our protagonist is a young military male and that the conscripts are all elderly. It isn't quite clear how big or powerful the civilization is.
What Herod does well though is to understand that there is a degree of normalcy to be expected within the walls. It is the crossing of the frontier that brings danger, to go into the unknown. Sometimes this kind of fiction is ruined by implausible horrors and atrocities that even in the darkest moments of human history have not happened - looking at Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" as being most guilty of this. No the horror that Herod portrays is always believable and the evolving nature of how things break down is spot on. There is a depth of understanding about human nature here that often gets overlooked in other books tackling this subject.
All this positivity aside I do have a few minor quibbles. Herod is certainly saying something deeper at times but perhaps he draws back a little too much. Leaving some subjects open to interpretation is great but if you have a certain message that is being spoken by a character it needs to feel more complete. The other minor issue I took was with how he is wrapping up the tale, suffice to say no spoilers but it was a confusing expose of female hypergamy that just felt misplaced.
Those minor quibbles really aren't much though, the story is engaging and progresses well. There are deeper moments and his emphasis on mystery and what is unsaid really keep you in the world with the characters. A final note would have to be accomplishing the actions scenes in such a tight manner. They were well written and Herod was unafraid to utilize the power of the Greeks to let certain bloody acts remain off screen (so to speak). We need more literature like this because it offers space for stories. That is the appeal of the deindustrial route, if done right it enforces us to engage in reality not in gay space communism that is ideologically see-through. Herod's tight coming of age tale shows how a believable world can be crafted and enjoyed, how the reality of the world can be explained without beating people over the head with the stick of propaganda. It's an enjoyable read and you should go buy a copy right now.
