A Dark and Hungry God Arises: Book Review/Discussion

I just finished reading A Dark and Hungry God Arises, by Stephen R. Donaldson. This is the third book in the Gap Cycle, a dark SciFi series set in the wake of humanity spreading out into the void beyond. The series started out small, and is progressively scaling up the complexity. The second book took that first step, keeping the focus tight, while introducing some of the players pulling strings in the background. This third entry has taken yet another step, introducing yet more players and more plot from this higher end of the story. Even still, the focus of the main story line with all the main characters from the original entries has not been lost. Donaldson has proved his ability to balance the higher level complexity with a smaller scale story that keeps the reader focused on a personal level.

Overall (No Spoilers)

The book opens in the perfect way. The master string puller, the Dragon, the man who basically controls the whole of space, is introduced for the first time—and in the first chapter. Better, we get to see inside his head. This is the man that has been hinted at before, and we get to see his nature from the beginning. And he's a real momma's boy, haha. But seriously, this chapter serves a very important function in relation to the rest of the story. It not only introduces this character, but it creates a certain looming terror over everything that follows.

Because I am a political intrigue junky, the part of the story that stood out to me was the machinations between the various string pullers in the background. They are apparently analogous to the Gods in The Ring Cycle that served as one of the bases of this series. And this conflict seems to be split two ways, potentially in three ways.

The primary two are the Dragon and his apparent right-hand man, Warden Dios. From the last book, we understand that Dios is scheming behind the back of the Dragon, looking to subvert the plans of his higher up, while also making it look like he is working along his side. The third potential schemer is Hashi Lebwohl, who is some kind of middle ground, though he is skewed to one side more than the other. The fact that his intentions are uncertain alone is sufficient to satisfy my hankering for intrigue. All three figures have uncertainty hanging around them one way or another, so this is probably the most appealing aspect.

I also loved how the characters' philosophies surrounding their circumstances were articulated. It makes you question what the best systems are for controlling space, their intentions, and also how the story is going to go. I have much more to say about this, but that will have to wait for the spoiler section.

I think one of the best parts of the story is how the events of the prior entries are still continually being built upon even this far into the story. I can think of at least two ways in which this happens. Without spoilers, we can say that the people involved in the original scheme laid out in the first entry are only growing. And we can say that this has implications in the wider story regarding certain dynamics between characters, namely the Dragon and Warden Dios. There is also a part of the story regarding the intentions of the Amnion. Characters were speculating about why the Amnion wanted Davies and why they gave them those defective parts in the last entry; those speculations continue. Donaldson does a great job giving limited explanations, only to question them later on and provide yet more possible explanations down the line.

Another related thing worth mentioning is that Donaldson is also able to enter the perspective of given characters in meaningful ways that are often ignored. Characters often conclude false things that makes sense from their standpoint. They often dismiss the truth because it makes no sense from their standpoint. This shows that Donaldson is a careful writer. It is easy to get away with massive leaps in logic simply because the conclusions are true; it makes no sense for them make this conclusion, but people look right over it because the character happens to be correct.

Finally, the climax of the novel is amazing. More than the other two, I thought that Donaldson managed to carry this entry home to a suitable climax. There is much build up, and the release of tension blows the reader away.

Conclusion

Overall, I thought this book was incredibly well done. I will give it a 9/10.

Spoilers

Opening Chapter

There are so many gems in the first chapter of the book.

As mentioned previously, the Dragon (Holt) is the master string puller. And as he is portrayed in this chapter, he is the perfect embodiment of a greedy CEO who wants to maintain control of space for the sake of making profits. He openly admits (in his interior monologue) to suppressing the mutagen immunity for the sake of controlling the markets. Donaldson is obvious in suggesting that Holt is the ultimate threat, perhaps even over the amnion, given that the latter are moreso a force of nature, rather than a true actor.

At the same time, I am asking questions, at least partially for reasons that I will cover down below. Holt merely mentions that his control over human space will slip in the face of an immunity. But he technically never specifies why that hold is necessary in the first place. I don't recall him demanding profits for profits sake. In fact, Lebwohl himself questions that notion, instead thinking that the man wants to make himself a God rather than just getting more money. Not that this is any better, haha. Another option is possible, if only because it complicates the morality of the situation. Perhaps Holt has some higher purpose in mind, which requires his hold on human space. In other words, his hold is not for the sake of profit, or even becoming God, but for the sake of some long term solution to the conflict with the Amnion. Similar to what we learn about Dios, Holt might have a specific ideology which could justify his actions. We will see.

Holt himself talks about the differences between himself and Dios, namely that they are pragmatic and idealistic respectively. This might be the point of entry for this alternative theory of Holt's motivations. What does it mean to be pragmatic if one's only goal was to make more and more money? Presumably, there is some end relative to which one is pragmatic. It doesn't really say much if you are pragmatic toward making more and more money; usually, pragmatism is used toward some end that people find ideal, not horrifying: a questionable means toward an ideal end. Unless the pragmatism is just avoiding the naive ideal of eliminating the amnion, and instead making trade with them. More would have to be unpacked with regard to the immunity, but I'm not going to take for granted that it could simply be used without effect. It might even trigger war once the amnion realize that it is the only option once genetic imperialism is off the table.

Tied to Holt's pragmatism is his treatment of his mother, though that also includes a bit of his character. Essentially, he is keeping her alive indefinitely not only because he knows she cannot stand him as a person, but also because he thinks that she is an asset with regards to seeing things that he has not. This chapter shows Holt getting the first hint that Dios might not actually be working alongside him. Holt's approach supposes that Dios' drive for self-preservation will keep him in line. But with the story of Angus' escape leaking, he is forced to wonder if Dios has something up his sleeve. And from Min's perspective, Dios seems prepared to drag Holt down with him. Holt miscalculated.

But Holt also hasn't miscalculated. With regard to his mother, who helped him realize this plotting, he now has the upper hand. To say that this chapter and this realization in particular looms over the rest of the story is an understatement. Every action, every plot, is called into question by the looming question of what Holt is doing about Dios.

One important thing to note, especially as this story progresses, is that we don't understand Holt's plans all that well. In the first chapter, we know that Holt is aware of and supportive of the whole scheme to send Angus and Milos to Thanatos Minor. But it is shown repeatedly that none of these ideas seem to come from him, but from others—often Dios. Creating the immunity drug in secret is one example. The general pattern is Dios convincing Holt to do something, tying their interests together, while also getting something positive out of it. The question becomes, what is Holt doing? At this point, he almost seems to be a potted plant for all the agency and scheming he shows. Is he the actual string puller? He is also operating in secret, so it seems obvious that there is more to consider for the long term.

Also, Holt is 150 years old. Aging can be modified. Other than he and his mother, I'm not aware of who has benefited from this, however. Either way, I am also questioning how this will be built upon. I've considered the possibility that Holt might be looking to extend his life in a more straightforward way by using amnion technology. They can force grow people. They can potentially make amnion that look human. Twisting this so that they can make life last indefinitely is a stretch, but a small stretch.

Warden Dios' Plan

One of the core plans that Dios seems to have involves him trying to separate the UMCP from the UMC. Basically, the former is the enforcer of space, while the latter is the owner. There is a council that is ostensibly supposed to control the UMC, but this is undermined by the fact that Holt has bought off many of the seats in the council, making the whole thing an arm of the UMC, in its own right. Dios' plan was to transfer the UMCP away from the UMC and into the hands of the council, a major shift of power in human space.

How does Dios plan to bring about this radical notion? First, he stages a council where he essentially confesses to committing numerous atrocities, like giving Morn up to the amnion and more. This horrifies the council, naturally. And in the aftermath, he indirectly goads one of the councilmen to propose a bill that separates the UMC and the UMCP. As the council is in a panicked stage, they are more likely to overlook bribes from Holt and engage in radical action.

Dios seems to have failed when the bill is delayed. An assassin comes for his handpicked councilman, and council chooses to have a hiatus to investigate. This is ultimately disastrous, as people's focus will shift to potential terror threats, instead of Dios and the actions of the UMCP under Holt's direction.

The question is what Dios' long term plans are. No doubt, he has plans laid out. Contingencies seem to be a given. The entry ends with Dios having an out. He manages to convince Holt that his "confessions" were only to make people suspicious that something worse was happening. While Holt is likely not convinced, as we have knowledge of that first chapter, he at least puts up the face. In any case, the fact that Dios had an excuse to give to Holt in the first place shows that he has a broader strategy than the small failure that he experienced in this entry. This includes Angus and the plan to blow up Thanatos Minor. And that did succeed.

Later, we see Godsen get tied between Holt and Dios. Godsen eventually chooses Dios, assuming that Dios would not sacrifice him for the sake of his idealism. Godsen is killed shortly after, of course. The bomb that delayed the council and the later bomb that kills Godsen are surely because of Holt. But this also forces the reader to consider two possibilities: either Holt is competent enough to undermine Dios' protection, as Dios knew the assassination attempt was coming, or Dios is starting to make sacrifices of other people in order to achieve his ends.

Hashi Lebwohl

Another thing to consider is the third party, Hashi Lebwohl. Lebwohl considers Dios to be a genius. Further, when he takes part in the council meeting that Dios basically disgraces himself at, he straight up tells Dios that he trusts him and his plans.

He also thinks that Holt wants to make himself God, rather than simply wanting profit.

All of this seems to imply that Lebwohl is on Dios' side. At the same time, it also implies that he is not in on Dios' plans. He is working with the man, but he is also not privy to much of the long term ends.

But, as usual, I still want to push boundaries and consider the possibility that he either has his own ends, or is working alongside Holt. At this point, we only see his comments to Dios about him trusting the latter, and then his private diaries, where he simply describes the character of Holt and Dios without specifying his loyalties. Indeed, the were omissions to the excerpts, which is ominous in its own right.

I think the most likely deviation would be Lebwohl having his own ends in mind, especially with all his power in the situation: his control over the immunity drug and of Angus might play a part. Dios taking control of Angus might undermine this, but that might make the story more interesting in the long term.

There is yet another possibility to be mentioned here. That is, Dios planning to betray Lebwohl. Lebwohl might function as a good scapegoat for some of the bad actions of by Dios, and even Holt. I can think of good examples from The Second Apocalypse, particularly the last entry of that series. If you've read it, you know what I am talking about.

Dios' Ideology

To start, Dios lays out his subversive ideology in this entry to Min. And it goes against everything he has stood for throughout his entire life. The UMCP is predicated on the idea that they need to target pirates who are betraying humanity to the amnion by engaging in trade with them.

But Dios suggests that he does not really take this seriously.

Dios suggests that the UMCP has actually exacerbated the problem by policing the piracy. By punishing pirates, they have actually driven the pirates toward the amnion given that they have no reason to deal with the UMCP, who are likely to kill them for their crimes. They have essentially created an incentive structure that drives people into the very business that they are trying to eliminate. This is rather similar to some perspectives on drugs, where the problem of drugs is made worse by their illegality, as drug users can't seek out real help because they are cast out by society. Only by making them legal can we then take the next step to mitigating the problem. As you can imagine, the problem is very complicated, and has to be implemented in the correct manner.

And I think this also applies to the logic presented by Dios in this entry. Part of me was wondering what kind of trade was being referred to. As long as some kinds of trading are made illegal, the problem of pirates would likely exist. What about the trade in zone implants? Or enslavement? What are the choices in this? Make it illegal and therefore drive slavers to the amnion? Or legalize it and keep the slavers close? Was Dios talking about trade in general, or specific things?

I can't remember all the specifics, but my notes make the point that Holt might be using this illegality to maintain his control of markets. He can control markets by controlling what is and what isn't legal trade, thereby making more money as a result. If a competitor shows, up he can simply make their market illegal, thereby snuffing them out. This makes sense in a general way, but I still question the specifics. Is the UMCP arbitrarily making things illegal, or is Holt just taking advantage of what makes legal sense? Can Holt even control his behavior in this if he wanted?

Or is the problem simply the degree of punishment? The UMCP might be over enforcing certain things and driving the pirates over to the amnion. But that just makes me question what level of enforcement works. Can there be a balance between disincentivizing certain trade, while also keeping the traders from going to the amnion? Logically, it makes no sense to me. But I am willing to acknowledge that there might be a Nash equilibrium that is empirically identifiable. Idk about real world examples.

Perhaps the point then is that the UMC could just provide positive incentives, rather than negative ones, by offering alternative trade rather than punishment. But another problem with this is that the amnion have their own products to offer that humans can't just sell, so there will always be an incentive go to the amnion. If the UMC monopolizes these products by taking from the amnion first and then regulates the sale to their own people, this will also create problems. Setting aside the obvious problem with genophobia in people, there is the question of regulation. The end point of regulation is illegality. If someone wants an unregulated product, they can just become a pirate.

Going back to the drug comparison, from what I understand about the drug problem is that even if you legalize drug trade to deal with the problem, you still have to forcibly rehabilitate people. They are taken into a facility and are forced to wean off the drug. The alternative is what we see in some cities in the US today, where drug addicts are just subsidized by legal industries. The point is that drug "legalization" is a misnomer, as drug usage and sale are still technically illegal in many senses, and I don't understand how this would apply to the situation with the amnion.

I don't understand Dios' logic, but it might be built upon over the story. And I imagine that I'll reread the story later down the line.

Holt versus Democracy

It was all the rage in the nineties, making corporations based in greed as the primary villain. Hell, it still is, with both the left and the right having wings that attack corporate influence in the world. While this seems rather naive, I am hoping that these books don't end up sending another one of these simplistic messages. I want a deeper dive into the issue regarding problem solving, and I hope that Donaldson doesn't simply present democracy as the obvious solution.

I am not against democracy, I'm simply not naive about it. Letting people have the power of decision making does not necessarily provide the right solutions. Democracy can be a kind of tragedy of the commons, where long term problems are eschewed in favor of short term ones. People avoid personal consequences and distribute them out to the collective to be suffered in the long term. And no decision is made in the abstract, so any attempt to solve problems in the long term will almost inevitably have short term consequences that no one is willing to accept. Not to be a doomer, but I doubt climate change will ever be addressed adequately, because there is no incentive for the average person to care in any concrete way; people won't make sacrifices today to solve the abstract problems of their progeny—not even their older selves.

Likewise, I think the same idea should apply to the amnion. The alien race is so far removed from the people on earth, the people who vote for the council, that it's worth asking whether their voting patterns would be influenced by the amnion threat at all. Do we expect them to put aside their more local and immediate problems to solve the problem of the amnion, of whom many have never seen, and likely will never see?

Unfortunately for my predictions, Donaldson suggests the opposite. The fall of the guttergangs is associated with people's fear of the amnion, so Donaldson probably won't go this route. At the very least, I hope that they defeat Holt earlier in the story, and then democracy fails to address the issue as well, leading to the final act where the future is terribly uncertain. Too bad.

But maybe the seeds for this twist are planted: "With such tripe [the] masses of human beings were tranquilized—until those rare occasions when they woke up, saw what was really happening around them, misunderstood it, and did their best to impose the stupidest possible solution on the men who normally led them."

Amnion

For the amnion, we get yet another reinterpretation of their actions in the second entry. Instead of them experimenting on Nick by letting him have some of their developing equipment, they instead wanted to test an accelerator that would allow a ship to reach speeds approaching 1C. If they can achieve this, then they might be able to launch weapons at earth at this speed. The idea of escalation with the amnion is omnipresent in this entry.

This is all inferred from the fact that Marc Vestibule was on one of the ships the amnion are using to chase after Captain's Fancy. He would not be there if they expected Nick and his crew to die.

Going off this, it seems that they still want Davies, as they were not going to simply have him killed. And we get the reason why they might want Davies. Essentially, they think the zone implant is the solution to the question of how they coopt humanity without making it obvious. They are able to look like and talk like humans, while still containing the mutagen.

This is an obvious threat, but there might also be a question of where humanity begins and where the amnion ends. If the amnion can hide their nature well enough, then what is amnion about these humans in the first place? Will they just replace humanity in some modified form?

Character

I

Poor poor Milos likes to play both sides. He grew up in the guttergangs on earth, and this is the origin of his position as an informant. He believes that the only way to survive is to play both sides and pass on information as one can. And this escalates to the point that it is revealed that Milos is also giving information to the amnion. At the end, Milos decides to go to the amnion to admit that some of the information he was passing on was inaccurate. This is because he realizes that Dios has betrayed him and has some other scheme under his sleeve. Angus was not supposed to care about Morn, and Milos was in on that plan—but then it is quickly revealed that Dios has changed the programming.

But Milos lashing out and going to the amnion bites him in the ass; the amnion reveal that they know he is playing both sides and they inject him with mutagen to stop him.

There is also a part where Milos seems to realize that Lebwohl chose Milos under the expectation that he would try to play both sides. Lebwohl wanted Milos to pass on the information about the immunity. This opens up the question of how connected Lebwohl and Dios are. Milos refers to the plans of both, almost interchangeably. I did not recognize any patterns. But from outside context, we know that Lebwohl and Dios are sympathetic to one another, even if they are not wholly aware of each other. Another thing to keep in mind.

II

There is not much to say about Morn. While she was at the forefront of the last entry, she is almost completely sidelined in this one. This is rather similar to Angus, who was at the forefront in the first entry, and then sidelined in the second. She seems to be doubling down on making the kindest decisions. She cannot stand the backstabbing and the hate, so she even helps keep Nick alive. She still stands up to him, but she seems to be searching for a middle ground.

III

Angus comes back into the story in this entry. We get to see him act in the world with little to no agency. Even still, he seems to want to actually save Morn, even as the datacore forces him to go through with a plan. His position is very strange in the context of the story. I remember reading a review suggesting that this was a failed redemption arc. But I did not see it in that way at all. If anything, this was an anti-redemption arc, where Angus is forced to do the right thing against his will. I get the impression that if there is a redemption in store for us, it is only just beginning. We will see in the next entry.

We also learn that Angus was taught how to edit his datacore by the amnion. This is something profound in its implications, as the amnion seem to have much deeper knowledge of human technology than previously assumed. The implications are potentially terrifying.

Good old Marc Vestibule is one of the rewards that Angus had paid to the amnion for this knowledge.

The one thing that stands out at this point is Angus having a datacore, while also being able to edit it. No hint of this is given in the entry, particularly from Angus' perspective, but it is still enough to make you wonder how things might go.

IV

We also see Davies get his memories back. He sees Angus for the first time, and he snaps as all the abuse and horror that Angus had put on him comes to mind. He has Angus' body and Morn's mind, and this is only the beginning of the terror that he will likely experience in the coming entries.

I also liked seeing Angus wonder if it were his own genes that had made Davies so weak. The obvious answer is "no," as Angus is the most relentless and bullheaded character in the story. What matters is what this shows about Angus' state of mind. In the face of his new datacore, he seems to be increasingly broken down in ways that would never have happened otherwise.

V

Finally, Sorus Chastelain is revealed in this book. She is the woman who cut Nick, and they finally see one another again. Nick is consumed by revenge, and he is even willing to kill himself and his whole crew to achieve his goal. The ending is rather funny when his crew sacrifices themselves to save him, instead of killing Sorus, and Nick is left furious.

The main question to ask here is if she is dead. She seems to be, given how the entry ended, but there still seems to be more to her and Nick's story. We still do not know Nick's real name. And to have her die like that will leave some threads open.

Conclusion

Overall, I thought this book was incredibly well done. I will give it a 9/10.