A review by pattmayne
Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials, by Reza Negarestani
4.0
A monumental piece of horror-philosophy.
This is a strange and beautiful idea-story. It's about a rogue Iranian professor who goes off the deep end researching a complex, ancient demonology. The bulk of the book is pages and pages describing that ancient demonology, which is based on the idea that oil is alive and controls the Earth like a gooey demon. The book references real mythology, fictional demonologies from writers like Lovecraft, obscure philosophical texts, history, and modern social and political phenomena.
So it's mostly a fictional philosophy, but it sort of managed to convince some part of my mind that the idea was valid. By the end of it I almost believed that oil itself was just pushing mankind towards war and wasteland of its own conscious, evil volition.
I admit it was often a difficult read, being so rich in connections between obscure ideas and philosophies. But it was also a stimulating event to experience such a dramatic, ridiculous, well-constructed, mesmerizing picture of inhuman evil, expressed in such an original way. I still can't quite wrap my head around the book. It contains a lot of insight, too.
That being said, most people won't like this book LoL. There's not much storytelling. It's more like an essay and it's incredibly weird (but not at all random). Real fans of horror would like it. It's a completely unique work of art. Philosophy students should also appreciate it. And people who like weird stuff and strange ideas.
This is a strange and beautiful idea-story. It's about a rogue Iranian professor who goes off the deep end researching a complex, ancient demonology. The bulk of the book is pages and pages describing that ancient demonology, which is based on the idea that oil is alive and controls the Earth like a gooey demon. The book references real mythology, fictional demonologies from writers like Lovecraft, obscure philosophical texts, history, and modern social and political phenomena.
So it's mostly a fictional philosophy, but it sort of managed to convince some part of my mind that the idea was valid. By the end of it I almost believed that oil itself was just pushing mankind towards war and wasteland of its own conscious, evil volition.
I admit it was often a difficult read, being so rich in connections between obscure ideas and philosophies. But it was also a stimulating event to experience such a dramatic, ridiculous, well-constructed, mesmerizing picture of inhuman evil, expressed in such an original way. I still can't quite wrap my head around the book. It contains a lot of insight, too.
That being said, most people won't like this book LoL. There's not much storytelling. It's more like an essay and it's incredibly weird (but not at all random). Real fans of horror would like it. It's a completely unique work of art. Philosophy students should also appreciate it. And people who like weird stuff and strange ideas.