“Get me off of this clown planet!” Have you heard such words before? Maybe the adjective is different, but the sentiment is the same: Earth and its inhabitants are tiresome, and a one-way trip to Mars would be preferable to another election year or mandatory work meeting. Well, the great A. Cuthbertson would like to remind us all of a trite but true adage: be careful what you wish for. Other planets may be worse than Earth.
Spire, Mr. Cuthbertson’s latest novella, is a glimpse of a future humanity confined to a planet well away from our third rock. The planet is known simply as IV. IV is a gigantic mining colony where class divisions run deep. On one side, hidden behind walls and layers of security, are the representatives of Central. Central is the government in charge of all matters on IV, and their gray-suited thugs are not above threatening the miners from time to time. Although the miners are the majority, most have been cowered into submission by the seemingly pervasive Central authority. One cannot help but see the parallels between IV and the future city depicted in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). The Metropolis in Lang’s film and Thea Harbou’s original 1925 novel is a giant, inhuman city where paradise reigns for the wealthy and hell rules the workers. That is true for IV, but, unlike in Metropolis, IV is more illusion than Marxist fever dream.
Thaig, a burly redhead with a bad attitude, is not afraid of Central. He hates them, in fact. Thaig is a native of IV, an abuser of stimulants, and a member of the working class aristocracy on the planet. He is not a man to be messed with. Thaig is not the only threat to Central; a cult of religious fanatics known as the Antennites also threaten power, but in a different way. These weirdos worship the large black spire that forms the core of IV. To them, the spire is an antena pointing to God. They try to recruit Thaig at one point, but that goes nowhere.
A seemingly innocuous event triggers the apocalypse that overwhelms IV. A mine crew discovers a weird white liquid coming from the mines underneath the spire. This sets off a series of raids by Central, almost all of which are designed to kill the colony’s miners. One who escapes his death sentence is Thaig. After removing the microchip implant from his wrist, Thaig sets out to learn more about Central. As he does so, he watches as IV descends into open rebellion. The Antennites now rule the planet. Rather than join them, Thaig undertakes a separate mission to learn the truth about the spire—its purpose and its origins. What he discovers is a cosmic horror that ultimately drives him to accept extermination for himself and the other inhabitants of IV.
Spire is a fantastic novella that, like an expert painter, blends well the many different colors of cosmic horror, science fiction, and cyberpunk. Mr. Cuthbertson is a master stylist with a prose that simultaneously moves and makes you think. Like his earlier effort, 2021’s Dreadge & Prestwick’s Project, Spire exudes Lovecraftian menace and tackles some of the Old Man from Providence’s themes. However, Cuthbertson is and will remain his own artist. Spire contains a profound political message without becoming a didactic mess, which is no small feet in and of itself. The novella’s depiction of an intergalactic mining colony feels prescient given public figures like Elon Musk, who has flaunted the idea of space colonization in the past. One would hope that any aspiring colonial projects coordinators would first read Spire, as it is an eternal warning that there are always unknown things awaiting us in the darkness. Sometimes man is not meant to tread everywhere, or in this case, mine everywhere.
Pick up Spire. Read Spire. Mr. Cuthbertson’s masterpiece is the shape of cyberpunk to come.