A review by shoba
Telluria by Vladimir Sorokin

4.0

Fifty short stories of a dystopian world after a global religious war. The stories each have a different point of view and are set in different locations around the globe. They are written in the form of prayers, a song, proclamations, a news broadcast, letters, or even a poem that reimagines Allen Ginsburg’s Howl. The short stories are part fairy tale, part science fiction and includes giants, Templar knights, robots, princesses, and dog men. The ecological devastation and political chaos coexists with rudimentary tools and high tech machines. In this world the metal tellurium has become both currency and drug. Tellurium nails are hammered into the user’s skull by men called Carpenters and produces feelings of ecstasy, provides strength and courage before a battle, the acquisition of knowledge and abilities, and allows one to converse with the dead.

Story No. 21

Magnus the Hasty, a Carpenter, rushes on towards his destination and, as he approaches his goal, was scanned to verify his identity. Shown into the hall he was greeted by five other Carpenters and has his feet washed by his companions. The following day, during the grand ceremony, the Carpenters gather and are joined by the Grand Magistrate of the Templar Order, the military Chaplin and the Templar Knights themselves. After Mass, the Chaplin offers a sermon on the preservation of Christendom, if not the resulting “end of days”, and then the knights are called to a great battle. The Holy Communion taken, Magnus was chosen to nail the tellurium spike into the Magister’s skull while the other five Carpenters perform the same service for the knights present. The Magister speaks, encouraging the warriors to take the battle to the infidels in Istanbul and to save Christian Europe from slavery and a heretic faith. Leaving the refractory, the fighters walk to the catapult and the robots armed with cannons and rockets. The Magister, the Chaplin, and the knights climb into the robots and are catapulted into the air. And the thirteenth Crusade begins.