A Billion Days of Earth

Half a star for being a hidden gem from 19765 that more should know about.

Set two million years from now, i.e., 3 billion days, the first chapter introduces Sheen -- an intelligent creature who seems large mobile pool of mercury, born able to shapeshift (a la Terminator 2), think, see, and speak, with one mission: to absorb all "men" (book's term) on Earth. Through dialog with a rabbit-like creature, the first to be absorb, we learn that Sheen does this not by force but by psychically implanting an image of a perfect world that the absorbee can experience forever, albeit as a forever passive passenger. Where Sheen came from, for what purpose, is never explained. My expectation from this opening was that the novel would be quirky but too show more arch to be engaging. I was wrong. While this is not an adventure novel of civilization fighting a silver blob -- except for one out of place scene near the end -- it does come to carry emotional heft.

The rest of the novel is best described as an indie movie in text, i.e., a string of temporally ordered but disconnected scenes. Taken that way, the disjointed flow and slow development of themes makes a lot more sense. Some scenes are almost entirely dialog, some almost entirely action, some almost comic, some quite sad. Most focus on Rik, whom Sheen most wants to persuade, but cannot, but some chapters focus on the Filly dynasty, a caricature of royalty so inbred they are capable of giving birth only to monsters. Occasionally we meet the Gods, who float around in clouds, and are what humans evolved into. "Men" are actually evolved rats.

Most odd novels such as this fail to stick the landing, but the conclusion here worked for me.

Highly recommended, with the caveat that there is very little like it. The closest I've read would be Charles Finney's novels, The Circus of Dr Lao and The Unholy City. show less

Classic Sci-Fi, set long in the future, when humans have become something distant and over-evolved, and earth is split between humanoid descendants of rats and some strange conscious animal hybrids. A thing called Sheen comes out of a crater and goes around loving people and then subsuming them.