Review: "Final Weapon" by Everett Cole (1955)
Posted on March 4th, 2008
This novella opens with Howard Morely, a conniving, back-stabbing District Leader in a dystopian world of tomorrow. Morely acts as a martinet to those below him and plots against those above him as he leads his district in reconstruction and busy work in the decades following the major war that took place in the 1990s.
The societal picture painted by Cole is mainly gray: for second and third class citizens, life is literally lived underground, at subsistence or lower, and closely monitored in all aspects. The few ruling elite, the first class citizens, enjoy personal freedoms and luxuries and exercise control over the rest, forming the basis for Cole criticism of socialist societies. 
Much of the story is spent fleshing out Morely’s character and the lengths to which he will go to increase efficiency in his division until an invention that enables instant thought communication is introduced and the story begins to follow that line to a greater degree.
Morely encourages the production of the device to minimize communication costs, but soon becomes left behind as individuals with greater empathy quickly become skilled at its use. Eventually, the device enables societal changes because individuals find it impossible to oppress each other when they completely understand the viewpoint of those they oppress. Morely, and dinosaurs like him, have difficulty coping with the regime change.
Despite the somewhat grim face of the society shown in the beginning, such as the underground living quarters and the crumbling remnants of civilization, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, this story is overall rather bright and optimistic. I like Cole because he can draw characters and tell a story and even though I sometimes feel his endings fall apart, I’m calling it
Recommended. You can read it online here or find it at Project Gutenberg in a couple formats or at Manybooks.net in more.
Tags: Review
Filed under Cole, Everett B., Free Stuff, Psionics, Review, Science Fiction & Fantasy (SFF) |
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