Gather, Darkness!

Gather, Darkness!, Fritz Leiber. Open Road Integrated Media (ISBN: 9781497616622) 2014 (first published in 1943).

Summary: Techno-priests of the Great God control a post-nuclear world, opposed by the Witchcraft, with Brother Jarles torn between.

The most fascinating thing about this book is that Fritz Leiber imagines a post-nuclear world in 1943, two years before the dawn of the nuclear age. It’s not a pretty picture. You have one world government ruled by a structure of techno-priests known as the Hierarchy, ostensibly servants of the Great God. The center of their power is Megatheopolis with a huge temple and a foreboding image of the Great God. They dominate by sensational feats of power, all driven by technological wizardry, overlords of a feudal society where their word determines a person’s work and fate. The chilling thing is none believe in a Great God, only their great technology that woos by spectacle.

A young man, Amon Jarles, rising from peasant origins becomes a Brother. As he rises, he sees behind the power behind the spectacle and how it is used to subjugate the people while the Hierarchy flourishes, and the hypocrisy of the “Great God” faith. One day, he reaches a breaking point, and during a public assembly, speaks out.

Immediately, he is persona non grata. All he wants is to live an honest life without these false beliefs. But that cannot be permitted. In his flight, he discovers a rebel group of dissenters known as the Witchcraft. They shelter him, and nearly succeed in converting him before he is arrested and brainwashed by the Hierarchy. He becomes a focus of efforts by both groups in an escalating conflict that pits the Hierarchy and the Witchcraft in a contest for global domination. While nominally the Witchcraft worship Sathanas, the reality is that they are simply a rival techno-religion using alternative technologies. Asmodeus, the mysterious leader, may be the only one of any who really believes.

The chilling premise behind the book is a religious caste without belief who manipulates the fear of the Great God through techno-miracles, advanced surveillance, and brute force. It is a chilling exploration of how cynics use religion to manipulate people for the sake of power and profit. Leiber’s prescience of our own techno-politico-religion is striking. Common to both, it seems, is that, in the embrace of technology and political influence, both deny belief in the existence and power of God. However, Jarles represents those who would transcend the destructive binaries. Is there a viable alternative to the Witchcraft and the Hierarchy? And will Amon Jarles find it? Will we?