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Bartleby, the co-op member who had been there the longest, loaned him books, weird books he had never heard of, that spoke of other realities, other times, stranger than this one. Joanna Russ, Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler.

It helps having friends on ŷ������ with weird reading interests. And when @Carol stated that “You probably read my book reviews to figure out whether or not a book should make it your TBR list�� in her review of ‘The Seep�� by Chana Porter, she hits the nail on the head. I really do value the opinions of my GR friends, who have led me to books I would otherwise not have encountered.

This book (or rather, novella) is a case in point. It is probably a product of the Seep itself, like Pam the Philosophising Pamphlet, designed to indoctrinate (by seeping into) the unconsciousness of unwary humans. I found the 2021 Titan Books edition on Scribd, with a cover blurb stating it includes a ‘never-before-seen short story��. To my surprise, ‘The Seep�� itself ends on page 135, with ‘And the World was New�� taking up the rest of the book until page 189. At just over 40 pages, this is a bit more substantial than a short story.

Interestingly, the so-called ‘short story�� is a complete recount of the events of the main novella (yes, in just over 40 pages), but from the viewpoint of a different character. For the reader, this means a profound recalibration of what has gone before. I am unsure if this is intentional, but the Seep has much more agency in ‘And the World was New��, which also robs it of a lot of its ambiguity.

Given how short the book is as a whole, it is remarkable how many genre tropes Porter deploys (and blurs). It is a utopia, dystopia, and apocalypse all rolled into one First Contact fable, depending on your interpretation and understanding of the Seep itself. “The Seep did love us, and it wanted to help us create a perfect world. And this destroyed life as we knew it.��

We learn in ‘And the World was New�� that the Seep comprises alien beings that came to the planet in the form of a viscous substance that can enable psychic bonds between all living matter. “THE BENEVOLENT ALIEN FRIENDS, KNOWN AS THE SEEP, WHO ONLY WISH TO GIVE HUMANITY AS MANY DIFFERENT CHOICES IN LIFE AS POSSIBLE, SO THAT ALL BEINGS MAY BE FREE, HAPPY, AND AT PEACE.��

Initially it is distributed through the urban water supply, but quickly becomes airborne as well, and soon the Seep is all-pervasive. “There was talk of launching a war, but on what? Those who had been touched by the alien presence simply felt no fear. When connected with the aliens through water or bodily fluids, it was impossible to feel anything except expansive joy, peace, tenderness.��

The reference to ‘bodily fluids�� is in line with a couple of nods to Samuel Delany, who has written extensively about the type of alternative-lifestyle communes that the Seep gives rise to as humans are freed to shed all of their inhibitions and embrace every desire, no matter how obscure. New subcultures emerge like mushrooms, such as “the yellow-meeks, the decomposers/living dead, pain cults, pearl houses, that kind of thing.��

The Seep’s impact on humanity is much more than an alien high though, as people quickly discover that consciousness can be separated from the material, and that bodies can be altered at whim. All wants and needs also fall away as the Seep automatically gives people what they need. Of course, this leads to the collapse of all economic, governmental, and social systems as we know it.

The plot revolves around the lesbian couple Deeba and Trina, with the latter deciding to be reborn as (or to regress back to) the condition of an infant to experience a more fulfilled childhood. Trina is truly non-plussed at Deeba’s lack of support for her decision, and indeed her thinly disguised horror at the choice.

Hadn’t they vowed to love each other forever, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad? But what about in a time of the end of the world where the Seep, uncharitably but pointedly described at one point as having the nuance of a Golden Retriever, changes the meaning of what it means to be human forever, even as it strives to better understand humanity in order to celebrate its best qualities?

Put another way, do we have free will when every single decision or thought has been subjected to an alien influence as insidious as the Seep? Getting what we want all the time may be the worst thing for our growth as a species, because any driver for success and improvement is automatically done away with. The conclusion that Porter ultimately arrives at will surprise you.

If you are a Jeff VanderMeer or Neil Gaiman fan, there is much to delight in this deliberately strange and off-kilter book, which steadily gets weirder and weirder, while retaining a diamond-sharp focus on its human characters. This grounds the book in a lived-in reality that reminds us that anything extraordinary also contains, and is defined by, the quotidian.