Other End

The anti-apocalyptic, positive future scenario from John Shirley.

Author's Note

"A certain pair of authors have published a series of best-selling novels about Judgment Day, written from the viewpoint of ultra-conservative, Biblical-literalist "End Times" Christians, drawing on a misguided interpretation of the Revelation to John, and suggesting that people not in alignment with the so-called "values" of the extreme-right segment of the population will be punished by God.

It strikes me that if the landlord of this property we call Earth returns and discovers how we've treated it, and how many of the better tenants have been treated, then he--or she or something beyond gender--may indeed wish to do some evicting and rebuilding. But a mythology cooked up in a narrow backwater of the world is unlikely to provide the blueprint for that Day of Judgment. Hence, alternative End Times tales are called for, for the sake of balanced viewpoint, at least, and--not least--in the hope of the beginning of a paradigm shift. This novel offers that alternative judgment day.

The reader is warned that this is a novel with a clearly defined point of view; it is unapologetically partisan. Let novels of Christian apocalypse bloom--but this novel is written from the Other End of the philosophical spectrum. It is for people who would prefer to imagine another end, a more just end. I cannot be alone in this. For a while I thought the novel might have a sub-title: A Wistful Dream. But perhaps it's more than that--perhaps it's a kind of existential protest too, and one that is much overdue. It feels like the time for it.

Speaking of time, The Other End is set about a year from whenever you are reading it. If, for some reason, you've come across the book at some library's old-books fundraising sale in as far in the future as, say, 2012 AD, then you'll just have to assume that in the next year after you read it there was a big fashion for retro.

The tale, then, is set a year or so ahead of whenever. A year's not so long, but things can change quickly. Minor inventions spread; big ones are announced; new expressions spring up." (http://www.the-other-end.com/preface.html)

More Information

Commentary at http://www.weblogsky.com/archives/001054.html

John Shirley monitors apocalyptic tidings at http://signsofwitness.com/