[ExI] Graphic Novel Review: 10 Billion is a sci-fi tale of astonishing scope and visual imagination

[John Grigg]

"People in the modern industrial world tend to believe either that our
current civilization is destined to advance forever, or that it’s
imminently doomed to collapse. That is a longtime lament of author John
Michael Greer, who rejects both views. The former is fallacious, he argues,
because it ignores the fact that infinite growth of anything is impossible,
whereas the latter flouts the overwhelming body of historical evidence
showing that civilizations end gradually, not abruptly. In a 2013 blog post
titled “The Next 10 Billion Years
<https://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-05/the-next-ten-billion-years/>,”
Greer outlined an alternative scenario in which our current society neither
grows forever nor crashes spectacularly, but slowly runs its course. A
brilliant critique of present-day human hubris, this scenario reveals our
civilization to be subject to the same natural processes as all
civilizations that have come before it.

*10 Billion* vividly reimagines Greer’s blog post as a graphic novel. Told
and illustrated in an immersive comic book style, it gives potent visual
form to the original text. Marcu Knoesen’s adaptation is completely
faithful, using Greer’s essay as an almost verbatim script, but adds some
elements out of narrative necessity. For example, Greer’s piece, being more
of a scenario than a story, mostly lacks characters and interpersonal
conflicts, hence Knoesen’s creation of determined billionaire businessman
Mr. Davon. He’s bent on achieving immortality by transferring his
consciousness into an artificial intelligence his company is developing.
However, progress on this breakthrough has stalled, and Davon has decided
to turn to the counsel of a famed oracle known as “the Master,” whose
predictions have been astoundingly accurate. Upon journeying to the
Master’s remote forest dwelling, Davon is permitted a glimpse into an
unexpected, almost incomprehensibly strange future."

I really look forward to reading this graphic novel...

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-11-20/graphic-novel-review-10-billion-is-a-sci-fi-tale-of-astonishing-scope-and-visual-imagination/
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