The Gift of Fire / On the Head of a Pin: Two Short Novels from Crosstown to Oblivion

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The Gift of Fire / On the Head of a Pin: Two Short Novels from Crosstown to Oblivion

3.55 of 5 stars 3.55 · rating details · 160 ratings · 37 reviews

New York Times bestselling author Walter Mosley delivers two speculative tales, in one volume, of everyday people exposed to life-altering truths.

The Gift of Fire
In ancient mythology, the Titan Prometheus was punished by the gods for bringing man the gift of fire—an event that set humankind on its course of knowledge. As punishment for making man as powerful as gods, Prom...more

Hardcover, 288 pages

Published May 8th 2012 by Tor Books (first published 2012)

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Feb 14, 2013 Gerald Kinro rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is a book comprised of two novellas. In “Gift of Fire,” Mosley brings to life one of mythology’s characters, the Titan Prometheus. Prometheus was punished by the gods for giving man the gift of fire. His sentence is, having an eagle devour the innards of his immortal body. He escapes, however, to the streets of modern Los Angeles. There he begins a movement, saving souls and reforming the masses into doing good. He is transferred into the body of an ailing youth who goes on to become the sa...more

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May 01, 2012 Andrew rated it 2 of 5 stars

Walter Mosley, creator of the best-selling Easy Rawlins mystery series, releases a pair of pseudo-science fiction/fantasy novellas. In The Gift of Fire, the fantasy novella in this pairing, Prometheus, the Greek titan condemned to suffer for eternity for providing mankind with the gift of knowledge (in the form of the eternal flame), thus sacrificing some of the gods’ control, is unexpectedly released from his chains. He escapes his imprisonment and makes his way… to present-day South Central Lo...more Walter Mosley, creator of the best-selling Easy Rawlins mystery series, releases a pair of pseudo-science fiction/fantasy novellas. In The Gift of Fire, the fantasy novella in this pairing, Prometheus, the Greek titan condemned to suffer for eternity for providing mankind with the gift of knowledge (in the form of the eternal flame), thus sacrificing some of the gods’ control, is unexpectedly released from his chains. He escapes his imprisonment and makes his way… to present-day South Central Los Angeles:

He found himself upon a hilltop. To his right rolled the waves of a great ocean and to his left sprawled a mortal city with its temporary structures and its people who lived and died without suspicion of the knowledge that the partially comprehended but never knew. The smell of their smoke and feces filled his nostrils and burned his eyes. It was ever this way when gods and Titans mingled among humans. Mortals were like animals to those of the higher planes, snuffling and snorting and spraying urine to mark their domain.

Los Angeles was to Prometheus like a dung hill is to a swan—dirty and diseased, stinking of mortality—and yet these were the fallow grounds for the possibility of life.

The titan is immediately imprisoned as a suspected drug- or booze-addled homeless person (of surprising size and presence). Through his imprisonment in a mortal jail, he claims the name Foreman Prospect for himself and befriends a wino named Nosome—and through Nosome, a child, an invalid named Chief Redd, whom Prometheus heals and designates his vessel on Earth. As the knowledge and curative properties of Prometheus’s touch spread, miracles are brought into existence, minds cured—or damaged beyond repair—from trauma’s felt and inflicted. Through the vessel of Chief Redd, Prometheus is able to continue to spread knowledge, slowly gathering a cult-like swath of followers and transforming the gutters of South Central Los Angeles and the lives of those tossed in them.

On the Head of a Pin is the science fiction half of this double feature. Josh Winterland is a writer hired to document the findings of scientific research firm Jennings-Tremont Enterprises. When the completion of a project known as a Sail—a intricately woven fibre optic creation capable of accessing unforeseen energies—opens a window into what appears to be another realm, Josh is connected with a being that escapes conventional description:

I didn’t have to turn around to know that the memory he was experiencing was being represented on the screen.

I opened my eyes just in time to see Cosmo hurrying into the room.

“How did you do that?” Zintel was asking.

“It’s the Sail,” I said, exhaustion moving through my limbs. “It, it… Everything that ever happened, everyone and everything that ever lived has left an impression. This screen can connect with those impressions.”

“Like ghosts?” Zintel asked. There was no vestige of the official left. A deep experience had yanked him by the roots of his mind and he was moved.

“Yes,” I said. “I believe so.”

What the Sail has opened is a communication pathway with a conceptual multiverse (a familiar concept to physicists and comic book geeks alike). Through the collective memories of our world and an infinite number of others, Josh is witness to atrocities he can barely comprehend, and a degree of love he never thought possible. To those outside the experience looking in—government and military officials—the Sail is a potential weapon of untold power.

The pairing of these two stories is an interesting decision, one that I’m not sure works as well as the author might have intended. On the surface, they are relatively simple, interesting parables of knowledge—of the potential when faced with the prospect of omniscience, and the threats revealed when ignorance is embraced. In The Gift of Fire, the primary threats are those below the base ethical line society has drawn in the sand: murderers, rapists, and gang leaders among others. Through the touch of Prometheus, they are able to experience the full comprehensive details of the pain they’ve dealt to others, which in turn, is capable of driving these already deranged souls mad. However, in On the Head of a Pin, the threat is the control of knowledge by those seeking to keep a leash on what does and does not make it into the world at large. The two extremes of the economic/class structure are represented as being equally incapable of handling the knowledge given to them, due either to the actions they’ve already taken, or those they can only imagine will be available to them in the future. To this degree, the pairing of these narratives is certainly intriguing. Where they struggle to find cohesion, however, is strangely enough in their more direct similarities.

Religion (faith) and society (class and race): both stories deal directly with these concepts. With respect to religion, The Gift of Fire treats the coming of Prometheus as less a purveyor of knowledge and more of a direct Christ allegory, a concept made clear as Chief Redd’s influence grows and the once barely-alive child develops a following of worshippers and acolytes. Though seemingly benign in their endeavours, the President of the United States (under advisement of another Greek god in disguise) begins to see the threat of Prometheus/Redd’s growing influence. The spreading of knowledge is thus treated less like a source for ideas and action and more as a poor man’s simulacrum of total and unquestioning faith. Conversely, On the Head of a Pin uses religion to a more personal degree, detailing one man’s change of heart (with respect to race, which I’ll get to later) and how what he has seen through the science-made-magic of the Sail has convinced him to take dangerous, deadly action to keep knowledge form the hands of those who seek to take it and hide it away—the government and the military.

While both stories use religion in somewhat contrasting ways, the simplistic one-to-one of religion and knowledge is what pushes these stories apart, with respect to their potential impact. Instead of being Yin and Yang to one another, they tread all too similar ground, which in turn hurts the stories’ representations of knowledge, its power, and its purpose. This is also apparent when dealing with race and class issues in each story. Both employ such divisive concepts to further sketch a world seemingly without wisdom and in desperate need of it, but do it in such similarly hand-to-nose ways as to damage their individual and communal potential. In both stories, the power of black men is to be feared—be it by an authoritative presence in The Gift of Fire or a single misguided individual, as is the case with the zealot of On the Head of a Pin. The issue of race is tackled with claw-hammer delicacy, as the President is advised of the threat of a black man with followers, and a co-worker sees Josh (a black man) as less than human—until he is touched by “the divine”—and once more the promise of these two stories of contrasting genres approaching a similar conceit from two individual and unique perspectives is lost.

Perhaps this is a question of expectations. As I read the two stories, I found myself more intrigued by how the author presented knowledge as a fulcrum around which the details spun into their own independent directions, dependent on the genre and scope at play. But while these basic plot elements did in fact contrast (the science versus the fantasy; the homeless versus the scientists, both fighting the government), they were drawn in to one another all over again by Mosley’s inability to truly push the ideas of race, class, religion, and knowledge into far reaching corners at the opposite ends of the spectrum, which is what the differing set-ups seem to promise at the outset of each story.

Taken individually, both stories are somewhat amusing, if occasionally frustrating, takes on familiar science fiction and fantasy tropes. The Gift of Fire is certainly the stronger of the two in terms of plot and character development, though the character of Prometheus is all too quickly abandoned for the less strenuous Christ allegory. But together, laced as they are with socially pertinent themes that are simply not given their chance to develop into unique approaches to what is in the end very familiar subject matter, The Gift of Fire and On the Head of a Pin just don’t reach far enough.(less)

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May 02, 2012 Revae rated it 4 of 5 stars

Walter Mosely brings us two novels in one: The Gift of Fire and On the Head of a Pin. Both are science fiction/fantasy novels that are a joy to read. 'm not a fan of science fiction novels, and I don't think that will change, however, I was intrigued and entertained by these two novels. They were well-written, and in the 100 or so pages of each novel, I found myself sucked into that world.
In The Gift of Fire, the god Prometheus, tired of being tortured, walks in to the mortal world to find a sui...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Micah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, sci-fi, black

I really like short stories and I really love these Walter Mosley two for one specials. The first one I read "On The Head Of A Pin" was my favorite of the two stories. I liked the science fiction element of it. Some of it was a bit too grody, but on the whole it was okay. Both stories have a sort of short story problem where certain characters can come off terribly underdeveloped and they can be interpreted rather poorly. I feel like there is a female character in each book that just comes off r...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

As with "Blue Light" and "The Wave," Walter Mosley demonstrates his talent as a science fiction author. I have read many of Mr. Mosley's novels, and have enjoyed them all. He has a talent for breathing life into his characters, especially the protagonists. You get a feel for them and their stories in a few short lines of narrative.

These two novellas, present in the same book but flipped so that they are upsidedown from each other are amazing.

"The Gift of Fire" is about the Greek God Prometheus e...more

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Mar 13, 2012 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, fantasy

Two Fine Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels from Walter Mosley

Walter Mosley’s substantial talents in writing fine prose and storytelling are abundantly evident in his brief novels “The Gift of Fire” and “On the Head of a Pin”. Having once said that Afro-Americans should embrace and write science fiction as a literary genre, Mosley’s two short novels are memorable examples demonstrating why Afro-American writers should become interested in writing science and fiction and fantasy; however, with re...more

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Mar 08, 2012 Ronald Roseborough rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: imaginative-fiction, walter-mosley

Walter Mosley is a very good story teller. I like him because he fires my imagination. He is rightly noted for his detective fiction featuring Easy Rawlins, but as shown in these two stories, he seems to know no boundaries. "On The Head Of A Pin" deals with the consequences of being able to see into the past and the future. The other story tells the tale of an attempt to lift man from the dregs of our society to the heights our souls were meant achieve. While both stories are very imaginative an...more

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Mar 04, 2012 Randy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Two short novels, a bit of SF, a bit of fantasy, set up like the old Ace Doubles. You know, read a novel, flip it over, there's a second novel.

In ON THE HEAD OF A PIN, the SF, a small start-up company is working on software that can recreate past actors so perfectly, that movies made with them will be as real movies as the films they actually made.

What they get is-a gateway?-no one knows exactly what they have. It brings the government in when the owner takes it to them. To disasterous results.

T...more

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May 29, 2012 Jim O. rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: partially-read, sci-fi

Actually, I only read the second, shorter, novella, "On the Head of a Pin"; it was decent, although nothing special. It reminded me of the short stories and novellas that I used to read in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction and Fantasy magazine. I had tried reading "The Gift of Fire", but I couldn't get into it. I didn't care for Mosley's writing style in that story; it seemed overly poetic (although, his subject was mythological in nature). In any case, I couldn't relate to the characters and I los...more

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Apr 17, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, scifi-fantasy

I won an ARC of this book in a goodreads giveaway.

Review:
What first caught my eye for this book was The Gift of Fire's mentioning of Prometheus because I have been submerging myself in mythology books. However, it was not at all what I expected, both of the short novels were very thought provoking and make you think about a hire being or whether or not there is other life out there. I don't care who you are or what you believe but this book will make you think and ponder such things as existence...more

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Jul 15, 2012 Dave B. rated it 5 of 5 stars

As usual Mosley does it for me again. He writes great stories in my opinion. He prose and lyrical style is unque and most either love it or hate it. I enjoyed both stories. First the Gift of Fire and the way he took and old fable and reminded the reader of the fire of passion and community love that we have all forgotten in the fast pasted city life. Next, ON the head of a pin a unique look into the concept of artifcial intelligence and how it reflects on humanities dark side.
Wonderful book rig...more

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Jun 01, 2012 Tammany rated it 5 of 5 stars

i am a great fan of olivia butler. its hard to find good afro-american sci-fi writers these days but walter mosley did a great job with this novel. especially loved the gift of fire. his writing techniques and the way he envisioned his story reminded me of evie rhoades and her delivery in her novel. excellent read keeps you ever mindful throughout.

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Apr 05, 2013 Leslie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

The first story, "The Gift of Fire", is a modern day retelling of the myth of Prometheus set in the streets of LA. The characters were well-developed but I couldn't relate to them and had a difficult time getting into the story. A little too much fantasy and not enough reality.

The second novella, "On the Head of a Pin" is a science fiction tale about a new video animation technology that taps into another realm. While working on a project Josh, our protagonist, discovers that the video machine o...more

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Feb 11, 2013 John Kues rated it 3 of 5 stars

I find myself confused by Walter Mosley, some of his characters I enjoy reading, others I guess I don't have the knowledge to appreciate. I should stay away from his science fiction. He obviously has a vast range of knowledge and he can definitely write. I would rather read about Leonid McGill, Easy Rawlings, or Socrates Fortlow.

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Jun 13, 2012 Lynn rated it 3 of 5 stars

A fun read. Two stores that incorporate science fiction, religion, government, divinity, racism.

Prior to reading this book, the only Walter Mosley book I'd read was the wonderful "Last Days of Ptolemy Grey". I'm looking forward to reading more of his work, as it is now clear to me that his imagination knows no bounds.

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Oct 21, 2012 April rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was an interesting departure from Walter Moseley's better known detective series starring Easy Rawlins. Both novellas (they are paired together in this edition) star a young, messianic African American who is the key to humanity's survival. In The Gift of Fire, he has been empowered by an ancient Titan, Prometheus (the only one who liked humans). In The Head of a Pin, he is a young author who is the only one who can tap into a universal consciousness whose emotional resonance can bring peop...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Marian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Interesting. Neither are traditional novels. We don't have the familiar tropes and rules of plots that most novels have. Instead, it feels like Mosley is wrestling with fire--trying to tell us something untellable except in parable form. I read both over the a day and a half.

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Sep 26, 2012 Matthew rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is actually a 4 for "The Gift of Fire" and a 2 for "On the Head of a Pin." Loved "Gift" for its premise, storytelling, and symbolism. Loved "Head" for its premise, but thought the story itself fell short with very underdeveloped characters.

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Feb 27, 2013 Spider rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Great ideas, though I was not delighted with the results. The Gift of Fire was disappointingly preachy & shallow with an occasional profundity.
On the Head of a Pin- cool concept dissipated by governmental conspiracy & lots of sex for the sad sack protagonist.

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Aug 08, 2012 Jo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Walter Mosley's novels are well-developed and thought-provoking. I am amazed he can create such a diverse range of stories with such credibility. He is truly a master of plot and character development.

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Mar 03, 2013 Betty Hutchins rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really love the gift of fire based on Greek mythology. Although I am in information technology on the head of a pin was harder to connect with but both of the novels were excellent.

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Nov 09, 2012 Jon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Enlightenment, through various means, is the focus of this pair of novellas which find Mosley back in the realm of speculative fiction and fantasy. This quick, provocative read will resonate. I look forward to reading Merge/Disciple, the next book in the Crosstown to Oblivion series.

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Jul 25, 2012 Dee added it

What an interesting way to introduce the young the mythology! Everyone should read this novel,it has history and myth mixed together and the combination was GREAT!

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Aug 20, 2012 Victoria rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: scifi

My first Mosley science fiction. Lots of fun to read because of the imaginative and different treatment of speculative themes.

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Aug 16, 2012 vizionheiry rated it 2 of 5 stars

Recommended to vizionheiry by: evelynnalfred

Pick it up for Josh, Thalla and their stargating adventures in On the Head of a Pin.

Too many characters, not enough mythos in The Gift of Fire.

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May 27, 2013 Mariana rated it 4 of 5 stars

These short novels were too short! What is the relationship among the ancient gods, madness and creativity?

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Jul 03, 2012 Melissa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Thank you Pretentious Universe for Walter Mosley. He settles my soul.

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Apr 29, 2012 Joann(san diego shutterbug) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads-bookshelf

Two great novels. very gripping i could not put it down... thanks goodreads. I received this book as part of goodreads first read giveaways.Never read a walter mosley book.. glad this was my first.

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Apr 06, 2012 Phoenix Carvelli marked it as to-read

Shelves: goodreads-com, first-reads

Review copy won on Goodreads.com on 4-6-12.

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May 21, 2012 Kurt rated it 3 of 5 stars

I always enjoy books by Walter Mosley.

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About Walter Mosley

Walter Mosley (b. 1952) is the author of the bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins, as well as numerous other works, from literary fiction and science fiction to a young adult novel and political monographs. His short fiction has been widely published, and his nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine and the Nation, among other publications. Mosley is the winner of numero...more

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