Carcosa Bound

Faustian Futurist is an invitation into a pretty sketchy world – a demimonde of intelligence agents, revolutionaries, Ufologists, breakaway Nazi secret societies and Atlantean Space Brothers. It also touches on the weirdos who think they're in the game, but really are just the playing pieces.

As a novel, it's a lot like the Illuminatus Trilogy, by Robert Anton Wilson, in terms of content. This was hugely influential on me, so I've a soft spot for historical and alt-historical conspiracy fiction. It's a great way to explore and enflesh ideas.

A key difference though is in the style – RAW was heavily influenced by James Joyce and Ayn Rand – big, flaccid, discursive narrative arcs that meander like a stoned hippy flaneur.

Jason Reza Jorjani keeps it tighter, sharper – it has more Ligotti in terms of narrative twists, ever towards the darker. There's a resonance with Hesse there too, in terms of constant escalation into another grim realisation, always within reach but beyond grasp.

There's a lot of occult sex to go with the named, brightly-lit horror here too, and the writing is brisk and efficient. It avoids Lovecraft territory, while sacrificing none of the effect. Great portrayal of multiple potential timelines, too – much clearer than the mind shredding (but equally wonderful) excesses of Michael Moorcock.

There's a wonderful plot thread involving awaking consciousness by remote viewing Atlantean Nordic space beings (him) and their genetically engineered fucktoy slaverace (humanity in general, his girlfriend in particular) that he riffs off of. It's in line with his compelling breakaway Promethian operatives within an Olympian/Nephilim Ancient Aliens coming back to dominate us” theory. It's great stuff.

Maybe mad, possibly bad, definitely dangerous knowledge

Jorjani is an interesting dude, too. He's clearly up to something. Altogether too smart for his own good, in a wonderful way; an incendiary character whose incandescence could catch him on the pyre of his own making.

Like, that kind of exciting, dangerous outsider, heavily influenced with heroic doses of Neitzsche.

Jorjani takes this mind bending stuff out of the inconsequential contemplative gooncave that it too-often lives permanently inside, into a fierce practice.

His bio is full of all sorts of adventures and campaigns, with varying degrees of success (as yet) – though the man is extremely laudable and inspiring in how he gives apparent impossibilities a relentless, gods-honest try.

Diagnosis: a good, quick, wild read

Overall – Faustian Futurist is a fun read; among the more-accessible, well written and coherent examples of this genre I've been able to read.

Definitely keen to explore more of his work – finding exciting, actually intellectually dangerous writers seems an unfortunate rarity. Jorjani though – he's out there on the frontier, bearing messages of a coming storm – and the darker forces hiding within it.