In The God Peak, the Devil’s in the Details

Sequel The God Peak picks up the story from there, and immediately begins complicating things. Hemstreet understands that smart sci-fi begins with a thrilling, impossible concept made somehow possible, but that the characters make it a story. People are frustrating, short-sighted, and emotional, and Hemstreet uses that to his advantage, crafting a briskly plotted book that wastes no time showing us the dizzying possibilities of the premise.
More Than Meets the Eye
On the surface, there are two groups of superhumans: the Alphas, holed up in a complex that was their prison, who are planning to use their growing powers to insist on world peace and universal healthcare, among other utopian ideals; and the Zetas, led by the brilliant Chuck Benton and protected by the Benefactors, an aloof group who gained their mental abilities in an entirely different way. The Benefactors consider themselves almost a separate, superior race, but are limited by a reliance on immersion therapies to gain their powers,. They want Chuck to help them break free.
Some writers would be content to pit these two groups against one another, but Hemstreet takes a smarter path. Humans evolve along unique tracks—they bicker, they fall in love, they change their minds. Instead of two monolithic groups in opposition, he explores their growing internal divisions. People pair off, they disagree about strategy, they betray one another. They may be gods, but their still human.
No Easy Answers
The Alphas have laudable goals. Able to manipulate matter, control distant machines and networks, monitor communications, and cause incredible destruction, they decide they will force the world to end war—immediately. They see themselves as the force that will finally usher the world into a golden age—but their methods are disturbingly immature, and the collateral damage is massive. Hemstreet captures the sense these people are dangerous, not because they want to rule the world or have been corrupted by their powers, but because they have no idea what they’re doing. If life in the real world has taught us anything, it’s that ignorance and arrogance make for dangerous bedfellows.

Information is Power
For all their vaunted abilities, what the Zetas or the Alphas don’t know is what will destroy them. Information—who has it, who doesn’t, and what’s done with it—is a key focus. Chuck and his Zetas don’t trust the Benefactors, and trust them less the more they learn about their secretive motives, but the mistaken belief the Zetas have all the answers ultimately makes them powerless. Meanwhile, in the mountain bunker they’ve dubbed Olympus, the Alphas crow about being able to monitor even the most secret communications around the world, but quickly run up against the limitations of even their far-reaching knowledge—what they don’t know, for example, how to decommission a nuclear weapon.
The Horror
That’s where Hemstreet kicks the story into overdrive—the terror that sets in when you imagine human beings working with incomplete information, plagued by their individual emotional and mental limitations, who nevertheless have the power to completely change reality as we know it. Competence is as important as morality, and lacking either makes you a very poor god indeed. These characters are believable, even likable, and as you watch them stumble toward disaster, you have to wonder if you’d be able to do a better job of it.
The God Peak is an expertly-crafted sci-fi thriller combining giddy imagination with realistically flawed characters, none of them a cardboard villain, nor a pure hero. Each thinks they’re doing the right thing with a power they barely understand. That’s the horror propelling this smart story, and making us impatient for book three.
The God Peak is available now.