Stefan Petrucha is perhaps best known as the one-time writer of Topps' popular X-Files comic series. Thus it may come as no surprise that his first published novel is about a female FBI agent, Beth Mansfield, who specializes in religious cults. However, Petrucha deserves praise for making Beth an interesting, believable character who bears absolutely no resemblance to Dana Scully. Petrucha uses Beth's most disturbing and dangerous case to investigate the connections between language, belief, religion and reality, crafting an engrossing and surprising book reminiscent of Philip K. Dick. If that sounds a bit much for 159 pages, well, there are more questions asked than resolved, and the plot requires a few too many coincidences to fit into such a narrow volume. But all can be forgiven because the book still works.
The main characters besides Beth are a reclusive genius with the inexplicable name of Hapax Trigenomen, an insane street-waif named Calico, and an even more insane megalomaniac businessman named Albert Keech. Hapax has written a treatise, a great work of philosophy that will usher in a new understanding of the world based, in part, on a critique of language. But Hapax's miserable parents consign the manuscript to the trash and Hapax to an institution.
And then everything begins to converge. Calico fishes out the manuscript and begins preaching from it; Keech finds Calico and, eager for power and immortality, decides to build a religion around her and the work; and Beth, assigned to investigate the resulting cult-the Church of the Ultimate Signifier-finds Hapax. The resulting struggles are many-faceted enough to carry the narrative swiftly along. Calico's influence as a religious leader grows, as does Keech's power. Hapax fights to convince Beth that the book is his creation, and Beth fights to convince her superiors that Keech and his misappropriated religion are a true threat. But when Keech and Calico pull off a genuine "miracle" at a millennial rally, there seems to be no stopping them. Even the FBI bureau chief becomes a convert, and Beth's investigation is shut down. Hapax, as the original author of "The Great Work," is in grave danger if discovered. So Beth takes him on the lam and together they race against time to derail Keech's maniacal plans and steadily increasing power.
A great writer, or a bad writer, might have built this novel into a masterpiece like Dhalgren or a monstrosity like Foucault's Pendulum. [Editor's Note: Personally, I would reverse those assesments.-LP] Petrucha plays to his strengths and does not overbalance. He covers his philosophical ground adequately through plot-progression and dialog, only once resorting to Umberto Eco's technique of occupying many pages with the learned speech of one character. And unlike Eco, Petrucha pulls it off because his characters are interesting people, not verbose know-it-alls.
Petrucha shares with Dick the ability to make a book about ideas truly exciting. Hapax's attempts to explain the nature of his work are integral to Beth's attempts to combat its applications. The growing power of the new Church is truly sinister, in part because Calico is an endearing and pitiable character. It is plain from the start that she is manipulated and abused by, and ultimately disposable to, the reprehensible Keech. And Keech himself is perhaps the most revolting villain to hit the pages of a science fiction novel since Stanton Brose oozed through The Penultimate Truth.
For all his malevolence, Keech is one of the few flaws in Making God. He is a strong enough to despise, but not a sufficiently real to believe in. Likewise, Hapax's alcoholic parents seem like cardboard cut-outs of contemptible figures. They're rather like professional wrestling version of villainy, as if Petrucha's greatest skill is the creation of sympathetic characters, and his ability to create characters both unsavory and deep has atrophied. But given all the space tyrants out there, I'll happily take an author whose skills lean more towards believable, sympathetic protagonists. Establishing multiple characters in such a slim novel is as much a trick as making a book about ideas fly: if anyone is insufficiently developed, it might as well be the villain.
All these characters and ideas come together with a very big bang in a rich ending that offers a bit of everything while coyly holding back a little of everything too. It's rather like the conclusion to Childhood's End, updated for the postmodern millennium. The clash of characters gives way to the struggle of ideas and, ultimately, whether the ending is a tragic or pleasant one depends upon reader's reactions to the book's tricky but fascinating take on language and religion.
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