Mencius Moldbugman

This is both a curse and a blessing. Fans don’t read Lovecraft for the nuanced protagonists but rather for the ideas surrounding them. The same is true here. I can imagine women disliking this story very much due to the lack of relatable characters.

The narrator, like the one in Gig Economy, is a little overly-erudite considering his surroundings. GE had a basement dwelling NEET but one who was capable of quoting Deleuze. Likewise, it’s strange in this world of dazzling technology, AR games and a million distractions...

... to have a narrator who can so readily quote Borges, know obscure Irish pantheists like Scotus Eriugena and possess a Classicist’s knowledge of Greek mythology. It’s satisfying for the intellectually curious reader but more than a touch unbelievable.

If @0x49fa98 ever does write a full-length commercial novel it would be great to see him develop in the area of character depth. However, what his stories lack in character depth they more than make up for it in idea depth. There is just so much here to even attempt to list.

Sexbots, AI Gods, augmented reality taken to extreme, gamification of life, apps for every aspect of your life... I read GSH hoping that any developers weren’t reading it too as I don’t want them to actually bring some of the ideas into reality.

The central theme - and the titular pun - of the story is how the acceleration of technology has caused a breakdown in relationships not only between humans but with any deity who may or may not have existed but who now is definitely dead in the Nietzschean sense.

And from this God-shaped hole, strange new gods arise, for nature abhors a vacuum. Humanity hates the void too, and creates grotesque abominations to fill in the black hole where once lay something of greater substance.

It’s really hard to review this story without giving too much away but I do recommend everyone give this a read. The ideas are electric and the writing is intense and full of imagery. The descriptions of the augmented worlds are positively exhilarating.