Alan's The Weight of the World

It is always a pleasure to watch a new literary light appear on the horizon, although in Alan's case, some critics maintain that a more appropriate term would be "literary lite."  Alan's first effort, The Weight of the World, is an experimental science fiction novel that takes its inspiration from President Reagan's famous statement that humans of all nationalities and ideologies would unite in the face of an alien invasion.



The Weight of the World envisions a strangely familiar near-future in which Russia, teetering between democracy and authoritarianism, capitalism and gangsterism, elects as president a young technocrat named Alexei Gorbachev, who ran on an anti-corruption platform.  His project is derailed when a group of Russian petroleum engineers is captured by an extremist Muslim group operating in Libya, forcing him to focus all of his attention on the crisis as it develops.

In the midst of this disruption, a far bigger threat appears:  a fleet of alien spaceships approaches Earth and threatens to invade.  Now President Reagan's hypothesis is put to the test, as a common threat looms over all of humanity and our common fate is readily apparent.

I won't reveal what happens, but I will share perhaps the most controversial scene in the book, one that has divided critics and confounded any attempt to categorize The Weight.  By this point in the book, humans have developed a technology that can convert the force of gravity into a devastating beam, the only weapon capable of piercing the armor of the alien spaceships.  As the humans prepare to mount a final decisive attack, they realize that they must measure the incremental gravity that will result from millions of barrels of mercury that are being pumped haphazardly into the Great Wall in China.  The U.S. president turns to his ally and exclaims, "Mr. Gorbachev, tare down this wall!"



Alan's harshest critics claim that he started with this scene in mind and that the rest of the novel amounts to an elaborate setup for a groan-inducing pun.  Other critics have defended the pun, and some have even argued that Alan has launched a new literary school, one centered around the use of wordplay to convey deep human feeling.  If that's true, then it will be very interesting to watch this new genre unfold.  And I look forward to reporting on it.