Review of Consider Pipnonia by David Marusek

Glassing the Orgachine, second book in the Upon this Rock series by David Marusek, was something of a semi-controlled explosion. Blowing the series' storyline in multiple directions and significantly expanding the possibilities of the setting, it was a jump from first to fifth gear. Getting a grip on the steering wheel, the third book in the series, Consider Pipnonia (2021), calms and soothes the series in satisfying fashion.

Picking up directly where Glassing the Orgachine left off, Consider Pipnonia opens with the world in uproar. The “little nudge” having failed, the rogue planetoid is still on a collision course with Earth. People are fleeing the lower 48 for Alaska, and local town leaders are taking the opportunity to implement new rules, rules that are harshly authoritarian resulting in civil bloodshed. The strange alien presence telling Jace he needs to go on an out-of-body trip to the planetoid to change its course, he recruits Deut Prophecy, and hand in hand in the pair take a trip into the unknown to try to save the world from Jace's bedroom.

The intro to this review is perhaps a bit misleading. To be clear, Consider Pipnonia is not a staid, lifeless narrative. While it is under more control than Glassing the Orgachine, Marusek advances the handful of storylines in concrete directions. The end game of the series is still extremely unpredictable, but the book finds the zen state for events to evolve organically and interestingly. Jace and Deut participate in a Rudy Rucker-esque 'dream' that hints at said end-game but makes no promises. The turns of events on the streets of Alaska's small towns, governed by the Sara Palin-esque Vera Tetlin, move in a direction wholly relevant to contemporary “politics”. And the Prophecy family begin to undergo a reckoning that see them evolve into a different state of being. Things are moving ahead.

It's here that I would like to comment on one of the main themes of the Upon this Rock series: the alien being, and the differing versions of reality it presents to the humans it encounters. In a word, it has strong parallels to contemporary online media and the algorithms it uses to present people the information they (presumably) want to see—the echo chamber that has become consuming online news and media. Jace sees the classic bald alien smoking weed, which suits his modern hippie outlook, whereas the Prophecies get an archangel, a being directly complementary to their own worldview. And other characters get their own versions as well. It's clear the alien is pulling such strings, but to what end? And to what parallel with our own media environment? Read on and find out.

One giant mistake I made reading this book is that I thought Consider Pipnonia is the third and final book in the Upon this Rock trilogy. The closer I got to the end, I was nagged more and more by thought: How is Marusek going to close this with only XX pages remaining? Turns out it's not a trilogy. A fourth book is coming. Given the manner in which the rubber hits the road smoking in Consider Pipnonia, I'm left wanting it now. My only question (not yours) is: how many books left in the series?