[Book Review] A Cloud of Unknowing (The Deserted Vineyard 2) — Andrew Gillsmith
Faith ends where Knowledge begins. Knowledge ends where Faith begins
A Cloud of Unknowing continues the journey begun in Our Lady of the Artilects, pushing our understanding of the murky middle ground between faith and reality. Fusing the religious intrigue of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons with the metaphysical techno-philosophy of Cixin Liu’s Three Body Problem, this sci-fi series continues to be a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stifling genre of tired tropes.
While Our Lady of the Artilects ended on a bombastic, reality-bending climax of near biblical proportions, A Cloud of Unknowing is more of a novel dealing with the aftermath. The novel follows several key players, many of which are key players from the first book. The neurophysicist-turned-exorcist Gabriel Serafian, the neuroscientist Sarah Baumgartner, papal cardinal Marco Leone, imperial proctor Namono, and Sufi Imam Tilliwadi. The new perspective of the novel comes in the form of the gifted synesthete “diver” Ash.
Following the world-changing events of the first book, the world is now reeling from the after-effects of the androids, known as artilects having something akin to a human soul and what this means for established faiths of neo-Christianity and Islam. Moreover, the anomalous Lucifer Particles, high-energy particulates of otherworldly origin bombard the atmosphere, threatening the mental cybernetic implants now commonplace in billions of human souls.
For such an action-packed, tense premise for the sequel, A Cloud of Unknowing takes a rather serene, composed approach to plot development. Relying on lengthy philosophical discourse, both as internal monologs and expositional dialogs, the story progresses at a viscous pace.
That is not to say that Gillsmith does not wow us with entire plotlines of tense, intelligent, plotting, mainly in terms of the papal politicking behind closed Vatican doors, as various cardinals jockey to become the new Pope, in the face of world-threatening events. All of this while continuing to maintain the relevance of post-awakening faith in a world brimming with technological progress. There are bits of tense action in Namono’s storyline, with heavy influences drawn from Dan Brown’s writing.
What Gillsmith crafts expertly is the meta-commentary on the constant tug-of-war between knowledge accrued via science and the power and importance of faith. This reconciliation between faith and science is very apt to our present-day discourse and is a great example of how sci-fi as a genre serves as a pathway to human progress. The author does this while maintaining supreme respect for both, Christianity and Islam, levying intelligent criticism at organized religion, while also highlighting the importance of religion in the lives of the everyday man.
The story also begins to unravel the creation of the artilects via the major antagonist, the god-complexed Dr. Channing, as he continues to inflict his nefarious purpose via the “diver” Ash. His role in the unfolding of the story is both unnerving and frightfully realistic in theme, even though the actual circumstances are firmly in the realm of science fiction.
The scale of his atrocity is hammered home in the flashback interludes of a young Chinese Uyghur refugee in a concentration camp. These sections of the book are unrelentingly brutal and bleak, and hit far too close to home, considering the current political situation in the area. The narrations of the young girl as she is put on the treadmill of physical, mental, emotional, and metaphysical trauma is damn well grimdark in its scale.
Unfortunately, A Cloud of Unknowing does suffer from middle book syndrome and spends much of its page count setting up the pieces for the crescendo, making sure that motivations are cemented, key players are in place, and the necessary plot exposition is set up for the third (and assumedly) final book to take us home. The plot did feel plodding at times where the pacing reached mollasses-y speeds as various POV characters have lengthy internal monologs. While these do well to further character arcs, it does take away from the general pace of the novel and can be seen to be a bit tiresome as many of the themes begin to overlap and then become repetitive.
In addition, his descriptions of the reality-bending “dives” into the subconscious to “unlock” the next step in human understanding, while cool at first glance, does begin to grate as sci-fi-esque jargon is piled on and the motif gets wackier and wackier! The “dives”, and the Sarah-Ash-Channing plotline, which deals with these themes became increasingly exhausting to wade through as they were incredibly taxing on the reader's imagination. With heavy parallels to Liu’s Three Body Problem series, Gillsmith does do an admirable job with these abstract themes, but at the expense of other, more appealing plotlines.
Nonetheless, with a satisfying conclusion, and enough motivation set in motion for the conclusive actions that would tie various storylines together, I am intrigued to see where Gillsmith takes the story further.
The Deserted Vineyard continues to be a hidden gem of a series I wish more readers would dive into, as Gillsmith has created a truly unique futuristic world, dosed with intelligent philosophical themes and commentary, solid characters, and an intriguing plot, with hopefully an action-packed conclusion!
