The Argo Goes West

132, To the Heart of Darkness

John Carter and the Centaurs left Sacramento and moved northeast. Their destination was The Big Dipper Gold Mine near Iowa Hill in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

The miners luckily escaped the slaughter. The reason was that they were needed for digging. They were forced to wield pickaxes in a stifling, cold and execrable environment 3000 feet underground. Those who disobeyed orders or were too weak to move were mercilessly had their wrists cut off and piled on the ground as a warning to others.

In front of the solid rock wall, Cerberus wagged its tail and howled.

"What's beyond the wall?" asked Tars Tarkas, Carter's right-hand centaur.

"You can see why this guy is so excited," said John Carter, looking at Cerberus. "Hell."

Tars Tarkas frowned. "So you're going to hell?"

"Yes," John Carter nodded. "I want to see the heart of darkness."

The weak light of the torch, shining from below cast a demonic shadow on John Carter's face. His expression stiffened. Actually, he was afraid of what was behind this wall. But at the same time he was fascinated. John Carter was haunted by fear. He had to descend to Hell so that he could control fear, rather than let it control him. And after conquering Hell, he intended to go to Mount Olympus, Heaven, where the chief god Zeus resides!

Calaveras County, California, about 12 miles south of there. It was the setting for Mark Twain's breakthrough tale and the site of a fabricated Pliocene human skull (calaveras in Spanish!). Above it Dorothy and Giles were flying west on Pegasus. If Dorothy went back in time and said to the past Dorothy that in the future you would fly on Pegasus with the goat boy, the past Dorothy would answer: "Ridiculous!"

After flying over Angels Camp, Lost City and Milton, towns with interesting names, they arrived in Stockton.

It was no longer a town. It was a ruin covered with piles of rubble. Dorothy remembered an illustration of Lisbon, Sodom and Gomorrah in 1755, which she had seen in a book. Amidst the ruins, a familiar, shiny black train was parked. It was Argo. The crew, who looked like worker ants, were manually clearing the debris blocking the railroad tracks.

"Would you like to land?" Dorothy asked Giles.

"No. I don't want to get caught again."

"Okay. Let's hurry. San Francisco is almost here."

Book Review

2038: To avoid the end of the world by S.D. Rafferty

The future is uncertain. Anything can happen. However, there are various predictions of the future, from academically backed ones to absurd science fiction, and we need to sift through them with common sense.

The book begins on November 8, 2016, when Republican Donald Trump will defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton to become the 45th President of the United States.

In December 2019, a new type of coronavirus will break out in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, and quickly spread around the world, causing many casualties. The U.S. will suffer the most damage, and the trade friction between the U.S. and China will continue to worsen.

Then, in 2038, the war between the United States and China will break out, and the world will welcome Armageddon.

The author, Professor Rafferty, is a well-known sociologist, but this book is so insane that it ruins his career.

How could Donald Trump, the real estate mogul and host of the reality show The Apprentice, be elected president with a promise to "build a wall on the Mexican border"!

Indeed, Mr. Trump has a dream of becoming president, and six years ago he ran for the primary election of the Reform Party of the United States of America. That time, the winner was Pat Buchanan, political commentator, speechwriter for the Nixon and Reagan administrations. Mr. Trump in the book makes a similar argument to that Buchanan. Is this the irony of the author?

Furthermore, it is written that Russia will interfere in the US presidential election. Even Tom Clancy would be surprised.

So is the new coronavirus. It is true that infectious diseases such as AIDS, bird flu, SARS, and Ebola are raging all over the world, but it is unthinkable that the Olympics will be postponed for a year because of it. (Since the Olympic Games are held in Tokyo, it is possible to suggest a connection with the Japanese manga 'AKIRA')

Full of the Unthinkable predictions! It was so ridiculous that I wanted to throw the book halfway through. Even a child would not believe such a future would come. The United States is a democratic country and its people are not stupid.

This book should be placed in the fiction section, not the non-fiction section, so that readers do not buy it by mistake.