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BOOK REVIEW OF ...
Darkness Falls
by Kyle Mills
Imagine if the world lost 1/3 of its oil supply over the course of a single year. Life in our modern petroleum-powered society would
undergo drastic and difficult changes. That is exactly what the world faces in Darkness Falls, a novel by Kyle Mills.
In real life, this scenario is largely accepted as inevitable by "Peak Oilers," though their overall timeframe for the same level of serious decline is more on the order of 10-15 years. The much-respected "Hirsch report" (commissioned in 2005 by the US Government) pointed out that the massive switch to alternatives must begin 20 years in advance of peak of petroleum production to avoid significant economic damage. Since we're doing relatively little to truly mitigate our oil-addiction problem, a petroleum-supply decline that happens even over the seemingly long period of 10 to 15 years will be a very troublesome.
But back to the world of Darkness Falls. Here, environmental terrorists have decided to address our addiction to oil with economic shock therapy. Their plan is to destroy much of the world's oil-producing capacity—I'll let you discover their clever method for yourself—and in a mere matter of months, enforce upon the world mandatory reductions in the pollution generated from petroleum products.
But a mere decline in oil use is not sufficient for these villains. They have a second ace up their sleeves, an insidious, ingenious way to destroy not only oil, but much of the fabric of industrial society, thus forcing the world back to more basic (and ostensibly more sustainable) ways of living. The fact that much of the population in the industrialized world will die off in the course of this transition is, um, a necessary consequence from the antagonists' point of view. Their method is deliciously audacious, a world-devastation scenario worthy of any James Bond film.
First up in the fight against the forces of evil is Mark Beamon, an ex-spook, ex-FBI agent now assigned as a top-level bureaucrat to "fix it." Beamon quickly discovers that everyone agrees on Erin Neal as the world's expert on this sort of problem, but Neal is in early retirement, is chronically cranky, and isn't particularly interested in Beamon's problems—or the world's. The Neal character is a somewhat unlikely scientific genius with a penchant for booze and brawling, who shuns heroics and prefers his secluded life in the desert, where he fiddles around with swimming-pool-sized Petri dishes. Still, guys who wear dark suits and have the full power of a desperate government behind them tend to be persuasive, and thus Neal joins Beamon in the race to avert disaster.
As an "environmental novel," the author tries to have it both ways by letting his characters argue the different sides of issues. The eco-terrorists get a few opportunities to make their case: For instance, the antagonist convincingly observes that humanity appears unlikely to overcome the genetically encoded selfishness and shortsightedness that is now driving life on the planet to the edge of the cliff. He also correctly points out that global warming is a practically insoluble problem under the current circumstances and mindset. By the time most people realize that we must make radical changes or die—and demand these radical changes from our poltroonish politicians—it will be too late; the catastrophic effects will be locked in.
But more often, any reasonableness and righteousness in the terrorists' arguments are properly overwhelmed by the heinousness of their methods. And while the mix of characters does yield the occasional trenchant comment on environment and energy issues—for greener or for worse—this is a novel, not an issue paper. For anyone concerned that this is eco-propaganda disguised as fiction, forget it. Given that the novel's plot can be put in generic terms as "environmental terrorists plot to destroy modern society," one would have a hard time arguing that Mills shows any particularly green leanings in his writings.
In the end, what you have here is a pure thriller that uses the energy vulnerabilities of industrial civilization as a plot pretext and environmental terrorism as the villainous delivery mechanism. Readers on either side of environmental issues will take what they already believe and see it reflected in the pages of this excellent, fast-paced novel. So forget the politics—just enjoy!
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