The Definative Post Oil Novel is Here

Post oil fiction the subgenre of science fiction about what happens to society when the oil runs out has been around for awhile. The best or at least the definitive post oil novel so far Julian Comstock: A Novel of 22^nd America has been written.

Most of these novels are set more or less in the present or a few years from now. They generally show modern technological civilization collapsing and society reverting to something more traditional and less technologically oriented. Some like James Kunstler’s “World Made by Hand” extol the virtues of small town life and the common people that will replace today’s wicked society. Others seem to be a pretext for authors to glory in violence and destruction worthy of a Mad Max Movie.

Julian Comstock by American-Canadian author Robert Charles Wilson is very different. Its set a century or so after the end of oil and the collapse of our civilization when society is slowly rebuilding itself. Our society has been destroyed and most of our science and technology lost but enough survives for America to begin rebuilding.

What I like about this novel is that Wilson seems to share none of the prejudices that bind most post oil writers. He doesn’t show the pre industrial past as a friendly and peaceful place where people lived simple and happy lives in communion with nature. He doesn’t see the end of technology or the civilization it supports as a good thing. Instead Wilson reminds us that in pre industrial times most people lived a short brutish life of back breaking labor and vicious exploitation.

Instead of a pastoral utopia Wilson’s future America is a hellish place where most people are indentured servants, slaves by debt, laboring away on huge plantations controlled by a ruthless aristocracy. The majority of people are slaves who can’t leave their homes because they can’t pay their debts. National government in the form of a militaristic monarchy led by a hereditary “president” who claims to be a successor of George Washington has been restored but the only national institution that functions is the army. The monarchy is propped up by a fundamentalist Christian theocracy called the Dominion which tries to impose its vision of Orthodoxy on society.

By the time of the novel, the year 2174, some industry has been restored to America and the railroads are being rebuilt. Some technology like electric lights, submachine guns, movies and typewriters are making a come back. The resources used to make these things are harvested from the ruins of the old cities.

The story is an interesting one based on a real historical figure Julian the Apostate. Julian the Apostate a late Roman Emperor and a descendant of the first Christian Roman Emperor was a war hero who tried to replace Christianity with a pagan church and restore classical culture. His efforts were cut short when he died under mysterious circumstances while leading a campaign against Rome’s arch enemy Persia.

The novel focuses on a friend of the title character Julian, a writer who follows his hero to war against the Dutch and later to the national capitol in New York and the Presidency. Along the way the young writer becomes obsessed with an old book that proves the popular fairy tale that Americans walked on the moon was true. Meanwhile Julian becomes obsessed with the story of Charles Darwin and tries to make an epic movie about the father of evolution which leads to conflict with the Dominion and his down fall. It’s a good read and nowhere near as dreary or dead beat as most post oil fiction. Nor is it as violent.

As for plausibility well that’s hard to say. I’m not one who buys into the idea that the exhaustion of oil will end civilization or lead to collapse. Some Mad Max type violence perhaps but not collapse.

Yet Wilson’s future is more plausible than most because he doesn’t see it through rose colored glasses. Wilson’s political speculation is quite probable and what would probably happen after a collapse. America becoming a third world nation with a military dictatorship, an aristocratic elite and ending up a nation of sharecroppers.

Although I might note that the absence of automobiles in the book seems a little far fetched. If people could build an electric dynamo or a submachine gun they could certainly build an automobile or a tractor. Automobiles and tractors are simply too useful and versatile a technology to be let go of. They can also run on a wide variety of fuel including diesel, alcohol, methane and coal oil. My guess is that the automobile like the gun is here to stay in some form or another.

I might also note here that the book might have been a little stronger if Wilson had a little more military knowledge. The post collapse army he envisions would probably have tanks, Browning Automatic Rifles, grenades, bazookas and machine guns. It would also have a few airplanes another useful technology that won’t disappear.

Another criticism here, I can’t see either the Catholic Church or the Mormons rolling over and playing dead before the Dominion as they do in the book. Indeed there’s a very good chance that the American theocracy Wilson envisions would be a Catholic one dominated by the bishops. I might also add that the non white non Anglo population of the United States wouldn’t disappear and would be a big part of the post catastrophe society.

Despite its flaws which are minor, Julian Comstock is a great read and a compelling warning of what life without modern technology would be like. He reminds us just how precious science and technology are and why we shouldn’t let them get lost. This book deserves the Mad Max prize as the best post oil novel yet.