oward the end of the 21st century, the world is in a mess. A plague of nanobots loosed during wartime has turned many of Earth's cities into glass wastelands, inhabited only by Gorgons, humans infected with the vitreous disease. Seeking to maintain order by any system possible, the remaining governments have turned for a helping hand to revitalized religions. Membership in one or another state-certified religion is now practically mandatory everywhere, especially if a citizen wants to have mental access to the LINK, the global VR/information/communication network. Only Russia maintains a secular basis, and consequently they run on mouse.net, an alternative to the LINK.
Into this semi-stable situation, a new rogue factor has been introduced. Two AIs have achieved the status of legal sentients. One is named Dragon, "born" in Japan and created by a musician-programmer named Mai; the other is named Page, and is the "child" of the outlaw programmer named Mouse, who also built mouse.net. The Vatican wants to determine now if these AIs can be said to possess souls. They dispatch their chief Inquisitor, Emmaline McNaughten, to settle the matter.
So far, a fairly normal extrapolative scenario. But the kicker comes in the supernatural layering. Above mankind's mundane level of being, a supreme God more or less cognate with the Judeo-Islamic-Christian deity actually exists. The ranks of angels—Michael, Gabriel and crew—is a reality as well. And Lucifer—or Iblis, or Morningstar, as he denominates himself—the premier angel, albeit fallen, is abroad as well. Morningstar is intent on fomenting a Biblical Armageddon, and he conceives that Page might very well act as the necessary Antichrist. In human form, Morningstar vies with Emmaline for access to Page, while the Dragon and Mai play their parts as well. In chapters that alternate viewpoints among Page, Emmaline and Morningstar, the reader follows the hunt for the essence of Page and Dragon, complicated by each side's overarching goals. When Emmaline finds herself falling in love with Morningstar, and Mai becomes a carnal vehicle for the downloaded Page, the story accelerates into its endgame.
A future too close for tomorrow
Some 20 years after the crystallization of cyberpunk, the mode has become just one more option in the young SF writer's bag of tricks. Certain off-the-shelf components—tough-assed heroines with implants, AI godlings, callous corporate or institutional overlords, grungy streetlife hackers—can be assembled in patterns that exhibit a nouveau familiarity. Add a McGuffin, crank up the amps to 11, and you're off! But such one-from-column-A, one-from-column-B construction of a novel results in certain inconsistencies and unthought-out implications. Unfortunately, such is the case with Fallen Host.
Never is it really explained why the spiritual status of the AIs is so vital to the Vatican. They already rule their portion of the world with unshakable solidity, and have accommodated female priests. How hard would it be for them to issue an infallible ruling on the souls of the new machines? Not hard at all, in fact, because on the final page of the book, after all the hugger-mugger, that's just what the pope does, without relying on Emmaline's botched investigation. But if he had done it on page one, there would have been no reason to bring Emmaline into play.
Emmaline herself, while colorful and vigorous, has not much savvy or depth or extrapolative consistency. Despite being LINKed, she can't record Mouse's confession in jail without sending for an old-fashioned stenographer. This from someone who takes eyeball snapshots at will. Money changes hands virtually and universally, except when Emmaline whips out a credit card at need. And a reference to "wetwear," while perhaps only a typographical error, along with mention of transistors as cutting-edge technology, does not inspire confidence. Moreover, Morehouse falls prey to a cultural shortsightedness for which Allan Steele was once famously lambasted. I doubt very much that nearly a hundred years from now, after all these societal and technological changes, we will encounter "a punk, with spiked white hair and a T-shirt advertising some Japanese pop band." Morehouse's big musical innovation is a new kind of hardcore polka music (!) from a band that employs a cello player (!!). The best portion of this narrative arrives in the sections devoted to Page, where the young entity seeks in a convincing and touching way to fathom its place in the spiritual world.
But wait—what about the celestial riff? Surely this book is in a long tradition extending from Blish and Miller and Morrow, a tradition wherein theological matters are given a weighty speculative torque. I'm afraid not. The level of religious seriousness or fantastical innovation here is on a par with Warrior Nun Areala comics. The Devil is alternately smarmy and scary, powerful and powerless, boastful and whiny: A real schizophrenic. Even Anne Rice has nothing to fear.
Finally, the publishers choose to disguise that this book is a sequel to Archangel Protocol, and that no resolution of the Armageddon folderol is forthcoming within these pages. A third volume seems mandated, but will need to seriously rethink some of its premises.
