WHO DREW THE SHORT STRAW?

In Sumac’s novel, three time-traveling psychicmediums, tribes of feuding aliens, and several ordinary humans arrive in Vincennes, Indiana, for a meeting that may result in the end of the world.

Each group is seeking an ancient gem-encrusted ceremonial dagger while a new Stonehenge is constructed, as both instruments are needed to reconnect with the Mkultrans, who first visited Earth 4,500 years ago. The extraterrestrials are intrigued by humans’ biological similarities to them (“Except that a Mkultran has a third nostril and a giant cephalopod-looking creature sitting atop his head”), but the would-be colonizers find humanity insufficiently advanced. They meet Haggur, a powerful psychic, who’s tasked with contacting them once humankind is ready for them. Haggur created the aforementioned dagger and taught witchcraft to Morgen an Spyrys and Pythia, who have an ongoing rivalry. Morgen is the novel’s narrator, whose “quasi-omniscient” asides detail a disastrous chain of events involving various characters; she currently inhabits the body of Harvey Ferguson, assistant to the world’s richest man, Buchanan Sanderborn. Elsewhere, Shaniqua Bishop, a young researcher, becomes a willing host for Pythia after the latter is unleashed from a cookbook in which Morgen imprisoned her 50 years ago. In a parallel storyline, Morton Richardson, a Midwestern insurance company president, eavesdrops on his wife, resulting in sexual insecurity and “psychic-emotional angst” that acts as a beacon to “predators circling around in the mystical Fourth Dimension.” Sumac’s outlandish work of speculative fiction presents readers with a sprawling, mystical battle across the ages. Over the course of the novel, the author weaves together a number of complex plotlines, which collectively result in a humorous alternate-history tale. The ongoing references to taxonomy and to the evolutionary behavior of alien races offer darkly comic observations on the dangerous dog-eat-dog mentality that earthly, spiritual, and alien species all seem to share. However, characters’ ongoing concerns about sexual prowess somewhat detract from the otherwise slick storytelling.

A complicated SF tale with innovative worldbuilding that pokes fun at the impulse to be at the top of the food chain.