The Pillar by Ely Buendia

Image©Arnold Arre

"Dark" is a classic and recurrent theme in every dystopic story but I think the better description here is "blur" because of the bleak and empty fate of Ely's protagonist. It may also be an apt description of his place, his setting in the future named Solimar Cluster where the Sun is sacred. It's tempting to believe at first that this Science Fiction attempt by Ely Buendia is maybe looking to Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun Saga as an inspiration but the latter's sun cooling down, and the former's sun that has become sacred are two different things. The same difference between a literal dark planet, and the symbolic hopeless world.

Make no mistake about it, Eheads fans enjoyed Fruitcake (the Xmas storybook) since 1997. But this short story attempt by the Eheads frontman may be a straddle between the boundary of pass and failure. Readers will either remember or forget about the story of a botched cult ritual and Nuclear attack. In a future age of high technology than our own, how can someone deploy a nuclear bomb without an automatic, built-in, portable, or wireless detonation device is a big question, a big plot hole huge as the crater of now-dormant Mt Pinatubo. Luckily, illustrations by Arnold Arre provided additional points to save the sci fi story from being absorbed by a black hole.

Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: 3 steel bolts out of 5


Read the story here:

http://rogue.ph/features/the-pillar-by-ely-buendia-part-one
http://rogue.ph/features/the-pillar-by-ely-buendia-part-two