Review of Glassing the Orgachine by David Marusek

And the winner of the award for most esoteric science fiction book title of all time goes to... Sorry, envelope's gummed up... Glassing the Orgachine (2019) by David Marusek! <cue orchestra> <David bows to the crows and walks toward the stage> This is David's first award in this category. He was nominated in … But really, what could a reader possibly think seeing those three words together? Google search singularity, hello!! Even readers of the first book in the Upon This Rock trilogy, First Contact, won't know what to make of it.

Which seems fitting. First Contact was, if anything, a singular science fiction setup. Wilds of Alaska, hardcore Christian prepper family, tough park ranger, mysterious object landing from space—those are four ingredients which make a stew the likes of which sf readers have yet to taste. Glassing the Orgachine serves a steaming portion.

Two years in the making, Glassing the Orgachine kicks off with a nice summary of the events of First Contact for those needing a refresher. (Publishers out there: do this more often!!) And then things kick off, precisely where First Contact left off. Still recovering from his energy-sapping encounter with the space flower, Jace looks to put the pieces together of what happened to him. Convinced more than ever of the imminence of the apocalypse, Poppy pushes his massive family as hard as he can to get their abandoned copper mine closed and self-sustaining. And yet the demons of Beezus remain in Ginger—or so Poppy thinks. As the days go by, ever stranger occurrences happen inside the mine, leading to an event that reaches out the whole globe, setting the planet's population on edge.

If First Contact was a straight-forward story of two opposing views to humanity's discovery of an alien artifact in the Alaska wilds, then Glassing the Orgachine is a fleshing out of the idea, then giving it hyper-fertilizer to grow. With multiple new character points of view, as well as a significant deepening of the meaning and implications of the alien contact, the end of Orgachine leaves the reader in another stratosphere (figuratively). Glassing the Orgachine does not answer the mystery of the artefact, but certainly enahnces and escalates the desire to know.

Title aside, Glassing the Orgachine carries forward what is one of the more unique sf drinks mixed this millennium. Marusek continues to deliver short, direct sentences describing the strange, devilish, and unfortunately human actions in the wake of the alien object's arrival in Alaska. The thematic underpinning of the novel remains science vs religion. It was audible in First Contact, but in Orgachine dials things up to eleven through tricks of perception that complement both views to reality. It's also starting to show signs that the alien elements, given how fluid and self-serving they can be, may be—may be—a metaphor for how fluid and self-serving modern news media is. Where algorithms in media these days feed people what they want to hear, so too does the alien presence... We'll see...

There is chatter online regarding the necessity, or lack thereof, regarding trilogy's bridge books—the middle child. While I often find the skepticism to be unfortunately true, it cannot be said of Glassing the Orgachine; eliminate the book and you eliminate a critical link in the chain. Consider Pipnonia, the third and final novel in the trilogy, cannot be understood without Orgachine. Not as likely to take home next year's award for most esoteric sf title, at least we know Pipnonia is a name...