So, there’s this firm in Dubai that is proposing to build a gigantic metal pyramid large enough to house an entire city of a million people. It’s intended to run on renewable energy, contain its own agriculture, and will even have a “three-axis” public transportation system (whatever that means).
Am I the only person to look at that and immediately think of the Last Redoubt from The Night Land?
I mean, seriously. How long will it be before they decide to run their pyramid city on “Earth current” rather than wind and solar energy? Not long, my friends. Especially once the abhumans are pounding on the gates. First of all, the solar panels won’t be any help once the sun burns out. Secondly, would you want to go outside to fix the wind turbines when the Watcher of the South is a mere 50,000 years away?
Didn’t think so.
Besides, it’s not like Dubai is a stranger to over-the-top engineering projects.
I confess to a certain fondness for Hodgson’s bizarre far-future romance, even though I’ve never managed to get through the entire thing. (Does that make me a hypocrite, a philistine, or both? Not sure.) I love the mashup of Edwardian sensibilities with a distant-future dying Earth; the bizarre terminology; the eerie, malevolent world where humanity is fighting — and slooooooowly losing — its battle against eternal darkness. I know I’m not the only person to find himself mesmerized by The Night Land. I even tried my hand at a Hodgson-inspired short story at Clarion, though it couldn’t by any stretch of the imagination have been called good.
The Night Land is out of copyright in the United States, by the way, so it’s available at places like Project Gutenberg and I’d be surprised if you couldn’t get a Kindle version, too.
But that’s all beside the point.
At least when the sun goes out, Dubai will be ready.
Consider it downloaded.