Seven Cities of Gold

by David Moles, Tomislav Tikulin (Illustrator)

"In anno domini 714, seven Catholic bishops fleeing the Muslim invasion of Spain set sail across the Western Ocean. There, in a new world, they founded seven legendary cities - and a legendary Christian empire. Now, twelve centuries later, war rages across that new world: a culture war, a clash of civilizations, as the armies of the Caliphate of al-Andalus invade a failed state become a terrorist safe haven, a breeding ground for global reconquistadores."

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Novella, Science Fiction Fantasy, Short Stories

66 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database. This is David^Moles.

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4.75* of five

This is a novella of alternative history, starting from the Point of Departure (from our own timeline) in 714CE. The author posits that seven Christian bishops, fleeing the all-conquering armies of the Caliphate, took ship from Oporto, Portugal, and flung themselves over the edge of the world into the mouth of the Acuamagna, or as we call it, the Mississippi.

A millennium and a half of idiot sectarian/colonial warfare ensues. (People are, after all, people, and we do *so* love hating other people, then even killing them, based on which imaginary friend they talk to at night.) Our story begins with the Buddhist Japanese peacekeeping and humanitarian mission to Espirito Santo, the major port city at the mouth of the Acuamagna (New Orleans, in other words), which was devastated by a huge typhoon (Katrina, anyone?) then blown up by the Christians in the world's first atomic bomb blast to keep the city from falling into Muslim hands.

Our PoV character is a Japanese aid worker, tasked with saving the world from these weirdo monotheists (too late, dear) and their latest contribution to disharmony: A prophet called Clara Dos Orsos. The aid worker, addicted to opium, is sent far up the Acuamagna to find and treat--by force if necessary--the prophet for schizophrenia. This, reason the Japanese aid commanders, will end the monomania and psychosis that characterize monotheism's worst excesses.

Needless to say, the story isn't about a triumphal march up the Mighty Mississip' but rather the voyage into the Heart of Darkness. War's horrors, the evils of colonialism, the insanity of religion, none of them new themes. This time they're played out against a backdrop of American territory. But for some small zigs in place of zags, the current Congolese crisis could be played out in Louisiana...an instructive thought. We're not exceptional, Americans, we're exceptionally *lucky* and should be deeply, profoundly, and eternally grateful for our good fortune.

The story itself doesn't feel particulary well glued together. There are holes in the behaviors of some characters, and the charisma of the prophetess Clara Dos Orsos in particular is shortchanged. As it's a novella, though, I wasn't inclined to blame the book for that. Being a beautifully made object earns a title a lot of leeway...and PS Publishing makes beautiful books. I'd recommend the book to lovers of alternate history, and to the curious about the genre a warning: It's addictive, this fictional answering of the question "What if...?"

[Jason Pettus · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Of all the small presses that regularly send me books these days, perhaps my favorite is Pete Crowther's PS Publishing over in the UK, despite their titles sometimes getting critically panned here at CCLaP; because more than just about any other small press I deal with, Crowther makes publishing decisions based on his heart and gut instead of his wallet, deeply idiosyncratic choices that are the very definition of "love it or hate it" genre work, which is how it is that I can adore the press yet still give it critical pans on a regular basis. Take for example their latest, the profoundly strange far-future tale Urbis Morpheos by British author Stephen Palmer, who I could barely find any information about online, other than that he's written other SF titles before and perhaps (or perhaps not) a series of nonfiction books on psychology as well; because although I ended up really digging it quite a bit, even I'm a little puzzled afterwards over why exactly that is, while there will be plenty of others who will barely be able to stand this highly challenging, highly abstract story. It's the kind of book that wouldn't even exist in published form without organizations like PS; and that's the reason I like PS so much, is that they regularly lavish a lot of money and attention on titles that will make others often ask what exactly they've been smoking.

And in fact, it's difficult to even describe in a straightforward manner what exactly this novel is about, with many of the details I'm about to mention being mere guesses on my part, based on what I was able to glean from this utterly expository-free tale. I believe, for example, that it's set on Earth but merely in the far, far, far future, one million years or more, in which so much time has passed that there is literally not a trace left of the human civilization you and I are a part of; and I also believe that what passes for humanity in this far future is now forced to share the planet with a highly evolved form of machine intelligence, one that has progressed so much for so many thousands of years that they too are now organic if not necessarily biological in nature, self-replicating creatures that essentially create entire habitats that are hostile to human life, forcing the humans to live in either protected areas or in artificial living environments called 'biomes' they've created themselves. The main character, then, is a woman named Psolilai, who actually exists in both physical form and as a dream state in our narrative itself (one capitalizes her name, the other doesn't), leading similar but different lives and with us never quite sure which is real and which is the dream, the narrative simply shifting regularly from one voice to the other and with both presented to us as "real;" and both Psolilais are on quests of sorts, that apparently have to do with the scheming machinations of her Shakespearean family, and that involve all kinds of "million years in the future" concepts that will have your head spinning, like (to cite one example) the "wreality" biological information devices that "live" in giant pools of water within the biomes, which humans then "catch" like fish in order to have their Wikipedia-meets-Greek-oracle information poetically divulged.

I mean, I could go on and on like this, but it kind of defeats the point of reading it, which is not to get caught up in the plot's intricacies but rather to let the whole thing wash over you like the obtuse gift it is, to wallow in this utterly striking universe that Palmer has created, even more fantastic for it supposedly being a look at our own race but only several rungs along the evolutionary ladder from where we are now. It's the kind of book I would never seek out on my own, out in the far edges of the "New Weird" and just barely understandable as a traditional three-act story; so thank God PS Publishing is around to get such books into our hands, the kind of frustratingly dense yet textually rich treat that I only have the tolerance for two or three times a year. It's simply too strange and designed for too niche an audience to get exactly a high score today, but certainly is a good example of the best that subgenre literature has to offer us, the kind of supremely odd yet deeply rewarding experience that will be perfect for existing fans of Mark Leyner, Mark Danielewski, and David David Katzman. It comes highly recommended to those who at least recognize those names, even as most will end up confusedly scratching their heads over this puzzlebox of a book.

Out of 10: 8.4

[Jay Batson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Urbis Morpheos

Well, this has to be the most unusual book I've read in the last couple of years. For context, I've read 113 books since April 2009 (when I started buying on Kindle, so this is the total Amazon gives me). I probably haven't read more than 5 non-SciFi books (and 1 non-Kindle book) in that time; so I've read a reasonable amount of SciFi, mostly from the authors you'd see as mainstream - Neal Stephenson, Richard Morgan, Charles Stross, Peter Hamilton, Ian Banks, Robert Charles Wilson, etc.

Stephen Palmer is at a Whole Nutha' Level. One way to describe it: "Consider natural & technological evolution running its course for a couple of million years. Discuss."

Urbis Morpheos is set in an indeterminate, but likely VERY future time, and an indeterminate place that is likely Earth, but it's never said. Palmer simply immerses you in the language, story, place, and time, and doesn't try to explain things you don't know about. Definitely non-expository. You're left to figure things out over the course of the book from the context of their use. While this technique isn't unique, it's definitely atypical.

But what really sets it apart is that the culture, environment, and place that this book creates is SO unlike anything I've read that it bends my mind. Serious drugs - or mushrooms - were used in the fabrication of this place.

By comparison, other SciFi books now seem to be a LOT like our human experience today, merely placed into a new context. Whether that context be space, robots, space-faring robots, human space or time travel, non-human similarly, etc., the emotions, actions, and stories of characters in other books seem to be comparatively rooted in & derived from today's human experience.

Not so with Urbis Morpheos. It's WAY different. Wonderfully way different. For at least a good chunk of the book, you'll be challenged to build a mental structure to hold all the things you're reading; and know how what you're reading could possibly relate to where the book is going. Assuming it's going somewhere.

And Palmer does NOT spoon feed you. That would be under-challenging the reader. Here, content occasionally emerges in a hallucinogenic fusillade that you assume will eventually mean something.

Or, not.

Your ability to understand it may be directly related to the amount of mushrooms you're willing to do while reading it. This isn't one of those books you're going to read and feel you grokked the whole thing in one read. To "get" this book would take re-reading, study, and work.

But don't do that. Read it, and let the ideas, story, and everything drown you. Assume that it might, or might not, eventually make sense, but that you'll enjoy it anyway. Then be prepared to sit & let your vibrating brain recover before moving on. And maybe someday, you'll come back and read it again, and maybe get it a bit more. Maybe.

Thanks, Stephen. This was a mind-exploder. My next read will be another of your books. I hope it is of this caliber.

[Jonathan Laidlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fungal dreams and nightmares. Urbis Morpheos by Stephen Palmer

After finishing and really enjoying Palmer's latest novel, Hairy London, I thought I'd give his previous book, Urbis Morpheos, another try.

I'd made several prior attempts at this far-future tale of environmental conflict, but each time I'd scaled the foothills of the first few chapters only to decide that it was confusing - clever - but confusing, and deserved to be considered when I was more awake. Or more intelligent.

Some time far in the future (if the jacket suggests a million years then the text never mentions it, and that seems a foolishly long and speciic time in the future anyway) a prisoner escapes from her imprisonment and returns to her home through a nightmarish and vastly changed Terran landscape. She then goes on a quest, possibly two quests, to understand and repair the ecological horrors that imperil the Earth and reconcile the conflict that endangers it.

Laid bare, like that, the plot seems simple, traditional almost. It's more interesting than that - she is an outcast, outsider, and the conflict endangering Urbis Morpheos, a term that signifies both city and world, it seems, is a conflict between two ecologies wrestling for supremacy - the natural, green, gaian ecology, and what is termed the "manufacturing ecosystem", but which is so much more than that unusual phrase implies - a whole alternative ecosystem of machines - nan-ites, articial intelligences, artificial beings, intent on a resource-intensive development of the world. Manufactured life, rampant, is the main threat to the "natural" world, but also seems to mimic it - there are machine equivalents to every aspect of natural life, some almost indistinguishable.

It still seems an obviously binary opposition, an extrapolation of the tension between the capitalist appetite for natural resources and the green desire for conservation, but, even if the conclusion is a tad didactic, Palmer develops it slowly in the novel, introducing the machine beings first and gradually introducing the collision of the two ecosystems as the source of conflict. The "natural" in this future is largely fungal, and as Gwyneth Jones points out in her lovely introduction (and she uses the term "Greenpunk" which is rather nice) knowledge and information is transferred by the consumption of mushrooms... But the Manufactured have their own equivalent to the mushrooms, wrealities.

Tales of the far future like this, where scientific advance is indistinguishable from the fantastic often bears comparison with Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, and most attempts don't stand up well. I'm happy to declare that Urbis Morpheos is closer than David Zindell's interminable Neverness sequels (though I do like the original novel) in this respect. Like Wolfe, Palmer plays narrative games with us, and while they enhance and please the reader, he never seems quite in control of them.

We are given, early on, chapters with three distinct sections - an unidentified first person narrative, and two third-person narratives. The first is about Psolilai and her travels to find an object of (technological) power that can heal the world; the second is about psolilai (lower case) - seemingly the same character, with the same companions, but in a different adventure trying to uncover the mystery of who rules a section of the city and how they are interacting with machine intelligences.

But there are no markers between each section, or indication of how they relate to each other. Later whole chapters alternate between Psolilai and psolilai and the two stories run in parallel, occasionally overlapping - it is hinted that one dreams the other - but never quite intersecting, before the first person voice returns at the conclusion. Now I'm in two minds about these techniques - I'm all in favour of keeping the reader confused and bemused, but in a work as tricky as this, it would have been better to add some structure and organisation, perhaps only typographic, or in the structure of chapters, to guide the reader through. Palmer also throws in some games in the time scheme - at one point a character pops up just to fill in what has happened offstage, but it only serves to confuse the relationship between the Psolilai and psolilai stories because it suggests that one of the narrative strands takes place later than the other.

So having finished the book I can confidently say that I enjoyed it, but it is not without flaws. The two narrative quests are well written and intriguing, and the vision of a far future on the brink of eco-collapse is terrifying but well put together. It is resolutely alien but never unreadable. Nor is it as difficult to read as Mieville's Embassytown. The conclusion is perhaps a little too simplistically allegorical - the novel is at its best when it is furthest away from direct parallels with the now. Rather like a literary mushroom trip, enlightenment must come at the end, befuddlement should gradually become reflections.

I must confess that I only considered the novel's title after I'd finished. All the way through I'd been thinking it was a changed city, morphed, if you like, but also a play on "morphology", the study of the forms of things, especially in biology, and of words. In this Palmer excels, for everything is made strange, then eventually familiar, which is a fine gift for a writer to have.

Then I realised that Urbis Morpheos is literally the City of Dreams, which brings the failure of the narratives to converge coherently, and the geographic instability of city and world into perspective.

[Jack Bumby · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has promise, but just from reading the first page you get the distinct impression that Moles had bitten off more than he could chew. The story claims it is a meditation on 9/11, the War on Terror, Iraq, and Hurricane Katrina - as well as being full of "emblematic violence and acute symbolism". All this, in 66 pages. My interest was piqued, but I was doubtful. Surely, not even the greatest writer could cover this smorgasbord of topics in such a small space? And sadly, Moles misses the mark.

That first page gives you a whole lot of backstory, it almost feels like a Star Wars text scroll, like the author (or publisher) is desperately trying to give you some crucial information that'll help you make sense of the story and world. But, for my money, that's a rubbish way to begin any book. It says to me that someone isn't confident in the reader's ability to comprehend the work, or that perhaps the story itself is so incomprehensible that is really needs some extra information to help with the heavy lifting. A bad sign either way. Also, worryingly, the book claims this is "the first masterpiece" by Moles but "surely not the last". If you want to deter potential readers with pompous wankery on the first page, that's the way to do it.

Our protagonist is the morally grey Doctor-Lieutenant Nakada, and the world is one of alternate history. In Moles' world, Islam is the dominant world power and is locked in a war with Christianity. Nakada is tasked by her superiors to head upstream and deal with a rogue Christian leader, who has recently caused untold catastrophe. You know the rest. The story is Conrad's Heart of Darkness (or Coppala's Apocalypse Now) - a story that I'm almost tired of seeing adapted. And I don't think Moles does enough with it to make it an interesting concept again. In fact, scenes feel almost taken verbatim, from the film especially.

But the imagery is there, the world is fleshed out. I enjoyed how Moles drip-feeds the details, building a pretty great world. The sights the characters witness are evocative and affecting, recalling pictures we've all seen of disaster and war. Cities are aflame, people cling to life on the side of boats, or on the roof of their submerged houses; all the while our protagonist passes through, numb to it. But it feels as if the book is too smart for his own good, not content to make one allusion but to instead make metaphorical references to numerous things. I can't help thinking that if Moles had made it an allegory for Hurricane Katrina, or the Iraq war - and not five or six different things - it'd be so much more effective.

It all sort of falls apart at the ending, as Moles fails to craft any kind of satisfying resolution or bring home his messages. Again, the description is fantastic, but I found myself just not caring. He keeps his cards close to his chest, not caring if you understand what he's going for, what the biblical quotes mean, what the pretentious waffle is all about. Which is fine, it's the artist's choice to keep their work amorphous, after all. If only I cared enough to try and decipher it. But after only 66 pages, I was done.

Overall, it's a very mixed bag. I don't necessarily regret reading it, but I'm not recommending it. I think the visuals are all there (and I'd love to see something like this on screen) but it just doesn't work as a whole. Maybe it promises too much, maybe Moles tries to achieve too much, or maybe it just isn't as interesting as he thinks. Whatever the issue, it's an admirable attempt but misses the mark almost entirely.

[T.I.M. James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where do you begin to review a book like this?

To begin with it goes without saying that this not the normal type of book that I would pick up to read, although strangely enough, one of the books that is mentioned in the introduction (Crescent City Rhapsody by Kathleen Ann Goonan) is one that I have read, so perhaps there is a precedent.

One of the main things that struck me as I read through the novel was the sheer amount of imagination that has been thrown into Urbis Morpheos. Most imaginative fiction requires a vast amount of creative energy in it, but this ratches things up another notch. It is wildly, insanely creative on a level that is simply stunning.

It is a novel that makes the reader earn its delights, making you concentrate as you read, not just to follow the two major intwining plots, but to absorb the depth of detail sunk into a far future Earth that is both breathtaking and nightmarish at the same time.

Set in in a (very) far distant future, it shows a world that has been torn apart by the relentless progression of machine against nature. Where the Earth has been torn apart, with nano-technology running rampant, turning the planet into a dystopian place with no one sure what should be the right dominant force, nature or technology?

It is a world where knowledge can be absorbed through the ingestion of mushrooms (for the biologicals) and through technological wrealities (for the constructed), each side convinced that their is the natural way forward, so society sits in a precarious balance.

The world it takes place in is a wondrous, terrible place filled with incredibly named places and artifacts, characters that conjure the strangest of images in the minds eye, with names that are as complicated as they are delightful as you pronounce them.

As stated above this is two tales, one of Psolilai and the other of psolilai (now you begin to see how it requires concentration). Both are women on a mission to try and find their way through the world of Urbis Morpheos, to come to terms with all the things that are arrayed against them, and bring balance to the environment of their world. But of course just to add to the confusion one might be dreaming of the other, but which one is the dream and which the reality is not easy to discern. Even more confusing the characters they interact with, companions on their journeys and otherwise have the same names, the same relationships, are in fact the same people translocated between the realities. Add to this the fact that jumping between the two characters seems to jump to different places in their journeys, it becomes dreamlike.

In both cases the protagonists seem to be flawed to make mistakes and the conundrum is something that is not really resolved until the end of the book, which is the way thing should be.

Ultimately the title of the world in which they struggle might be the biggest help of all: Urbis Morpheos, which translates into City of Dreams.

Reading this was an apt reminder of why it is sometimes a good thing to read utside of your regular comfort one, because it opens you to something else. The book is a very enjoyable read, something a little bit different and a showcase for a talent and an imagination that is extraordinary.

[Andreas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nakada is a military doctor on a special mission. After the detonation of a bomb with thousands of victims she is sent to cure the leader of the group who is suspected to be responsible for it.

The prose of David Moles is rich and beautiful, he has created a unique world with struggling religious powers. It's easy to feel sympathy with the main character Nakada and during the course of events the reader learns how torn she is. Her voyage is much more than a simple mission.

The end was a small disappointment - something was missing. The story fades out and and leaves the reader on his own. It deserves to be part of something bigger. If you go to the publisher's webpage you will find a lot of background information that is not included in the novella. What a pity! Maybe the author plans to write more stories in this world, I would be happy to read them.

Update Feb 2011: I messaged the author about a sequel. His reply: I'm not currently working on anything directly related to "Seven Cities", but you never know.

[Andrea Hickman Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I borrowed this from Confluence recently. It's a beautifully written book with a lyrical quality that one doesn't often find in prose.

I jumped straight in to the story, skipping the explanatory note at the beginning. Possibly I would have found the story easier to understand in terms of geopolitical stuff if I had read it first. Also, I would have liked for this book to have had a map so that I had a clearer idea of the geography and whereabouts events were taking place. As it is I found the story fairly easy to follow without it, though there were a number of questions I had.

This is not the sort of book that ties everything up neatly for the reader. This is the sort of book that leaves you with questions. Nagging thoughts that simmer in the back of your brain as you try to work out just what exactly it is that things are supposed to mean and whether or not you got all the nuances that you were supposed to.

If you don't like to think about things, especially those complicated things that make people uncomfortable, then this is not a book you should read.

[Liviu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great writing but just too ambitious story for the length making a mess of the execution as plot/world building go; a novel would be great in the same setting, but the novella goes nowhere trying to cram too much into too little space

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alt-history. Well written, to be sure, like all of David's stuff, but everything's a bit opaque. Felt like it was sliced from something larger.