Augur by John C. Sable

(Self-Published, 2022)

Reviewed by Stuart Carter

Monks, eh? What are they like? In Augur, 200 of them seal themselves inside an impenetrable concrete dome for the next 200 years. Or rather, 199 monks do: one runs off en-route to the finished dome (and the concrete dome isn’t completely sealed, as we later discover).

Sealed inside their new home, our monks only see the outside world through “simulations”, but their isolation means they’re now able to predict the future and guide the rest of us towards a better world. How this works is not something that’s explained, and doesn’t feel intuitively very likely, to be honest. Perhaps some Delphic sense kicks in when you’re cut off from the rest of humanity? Or have they discovered psychohistory 10,000 years before Hari Seldon?

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Review from BSFA Review 21 - Download your copy here.