A Billion Days of Earth

if you only read on book this year, make it this one. remark made on hour 25 science fiction radio in los angeles, sometime back, when he was still with us.

Sheen: The Ego Eater. The Earth teemed with life of all kinds, and many besides man had intelligence and the gift of speech. But chaos ruled. And violence. And despair. Then, in the Valley of the Dead, Sheen first entered the world, and all of life would bend to the might of the Supreme One before the final push to the stars.

This novel takes place in the distant future, when humans have evolved into god-like beings and rats have evolved into human-like people.The earth is populated largely by sentient and semi-sentient beings who are the result of extensive genetic tinkering by humans. It's made clear that while the "gods" (humans) messed around with the rat's social developement, they evolved their higher sentience on their own. It's told largely from the viewpoints of three characters. The main one is Rik, the rat. Curious, brilliant, and absolutely fearless about facing all truth, his friend Jak,a Canine, who is impulsive, passionate, and deeply concerned with ethics and what is right and there's Sheen. Sheen is an amorphous silver being who can assume any shape it wishes. Sheen has no memory of it's origins or it's purpose. It does have an insatiable appitite. It eats egos after seducing it's prey with telepathically sent visions of a sort of paradise tailored to the individual, which they may live in forever on condition they surrender their minds and wills to Sheen. Sheen becomes obsessed with the gods and with Rik after finding he cannot seduce either. Part of the fun part of reading this was the many exchanges between Rik and Sheen, as well as between Jak and Sheen. Laced throughout with humor and astute observations on the nature of sentient life. Reading about the various other beings who populate this brave new world was pretty entertaining. There were quite a few sub-plots as well, Sheen seems to be taking over all sentient life (He won't take children or the feeble-minded) and the god's growing unease and awareness of Sheen's presence. There's a lot of cynicism in this book, but it is very compassionate and ultimately presents a strong faith in the innate stregnth and beauty of Life. This is one book I have read repeatedly over the past 30 years, and enjoy as much with my changing understanding and viewpoint of life as I did when I first read it as a teenager.