Apes of Eden Book 4 The House of Solomon    Jon P Gunn

A Continuation: Please Read On

This unusual, challenging work is the continuation of the previous book, The Apes of Eden. Be prepared for similarities and differences.

The same, amazing, iambic pentameter with rhyming couplets goes on. It is wonderful that this can be done while telling a story and not being intrusive.

The same alternate universe is alive around you, with the Apes being in a world of humans, mythical creatures, and difficulties, having left Eden in search of God.

The same questioning of values, and the same dashes of humour await you.

This book begins in a difficult desert situation, foreshadowing the dystopia to be revealed by the human guide encountered by scouts. The Sage and Poet are dispatched to a citadel on the basis that they can most easily be spared, should their reconnoitre fail.

They are met by a ‘human’ who conducts them on a tour of his super-human technological history. In an alternate past Earth, computers have been used, and other machines, to augment mankind. Here are some quotes from this weird, semi-substantial guide:

“You apes have let your sheer tenacity

engender cortical opacity.”

“The Central Data System, you’ll surmise,

provides my conversation. It replies

to all the questions you see fit to ask.

If asked why I do not assume this task,

the answer is that humans don’t demean

themselves with work done better by machine.”

“It culminates our most ambitious goal:

mechanical replacement for the soul.”

“An ape believes in anything he wants

by disregarding skeptics’ lies and taunts;

but humans need computers to reject

conclusions it decides are incorrect.” Continue reading →