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In the Hauntings of Playing God, Morgan is a caretaker in a facility that houses a group of invalids known as “blocks.” Blocks can neither speak nor move and can not care for themselves in any way. They are the tail end of the human race. By some horrific glitch in the DNA or perhaps some alteration in the food chain, children are no longer born with the ability to care for themselves. Eventually Morgan and a rare few like her are the only “normal” children left.
As the rest of mankind dies out, Morgan and the others who are left that are young enough to still be alive, are left to care for the helpless. Thankfully, before they all died, mankind built machines called food processors that produce sustenance without agriculture or manual labor so they are able to feed those that are left.
But these caretakers grow old and their bodies fail. When Morgan’s assistant sickens and dies she is left to care for a gymnasium full of blocks and she is not physically able to provide care for so many. She makes the decision that in order for some to get the care they need to survive, others will have to die. She unplugs the food supply on a few at a time in order that she can preserve the others. But it is not enough. She is getting too old, her body is breaking down and she can’t possibly continue at the pace she is going.
She sickens and is bed ridden for a few days. As a result, many of the blocks die; so for a time she is able to keep up again, but only for a time. Eventually she must face the end of her life and along with her the last of the blocks will also die. She has not heard from any of the other caretaking posts for many months so can only assume that she is the last of the last.
This book is mainly about how she copes with being the only remaining capable human on earth and how she deals with the whole idea of death in general. The reader is taken with Morgan on a seemingly endless loop of unresolved philosophical memories in an attempt to answer life’s basic questions of “Where did I come from? Why am I here?” And, “Where am I going when this life is over?”
Before her assistant died, the two of them had made up histories for each of the blocks, giving them personalities and quirks. So they are almost like friends to her, even though she really knows nothing about them. So she also has to deal with the guilt as she is forced to “kill” so many of her charges. She has nightmares about the ones who are left coming to get revenge on her. Each night one of them gets closer to her bed, although in reality they can not move at all.
In the end her only comfort is that she comes to realize that all of the people we encounter in our lives, be they family or blocks, become a part of us and therefore go on forever with us.
The author compared this book with The Road by Cormack McCarthy and I have to agree that if you liked The Road you may like this one. However, even The Road, which I am not a big fan of, left the reader with the hope that if life is unbearable maybe you just need to get off the road. The Hauntings of Playing God is even more hopeless and left me sort of angry that I had read endless loops of philosophy only to come to no meaningful conclusions. Human kind dies, and to what purpose?
I also had issues with the science behind the world. Humans can find the technology to build “food processors” that could make food out of who knows what, but they can’t find a cure for the blocks? Excuse me, but that just doesn’t fly.
I will have to give this book only 2 out of 4 stars for the reasons stated above.
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