Disch's god isn't an angry god just one that proves there isn't any god in the end. Disch does this in a sneaky way that makes you sympathize with each character even as he is telling you he is going to knock them off. The universe will have its way no matter how you manipulate it. Finally you realize that everyone is doomed. But he's going to cure it eventually and make everything okay again. Billy Michaels curing AIDS (to get rich) but having to create another disease to balance things out, so to speak. It has to do bad to recharge the good battery in it.Īnyway the novel stretches into the near future (or what the near future might be in 1991) with the now Dr. Oh, and that magic wand known as a caduceus it needs to be balanced to work. The second problem is things don't always work out as you intended unless you are very careful about how you wish for things. Billy isn't evil any more than any other child. The first problem is you can't trust a child any more than you can an adult to make the best choices. All he has to do is believe in the god and say the rhyme to get what he wants. The novel starts in the 1950s with little Billy Michaels getting the power from Mercury (the Greek god) to presumably make things right. A truly literate horror novel that is really a wide swipe at Christianity and religion in every form, from Santa Claus to the Pope to televangelists.
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