In a mad world it makes sense to write about an AI overlord named "Bertha"

You may or may not be a slave to the coming AI overlords from the wet dreams of James Cameron. You may or may not be in a new-age religious cult. You may or may not be bored in heaven bargaining with angels to be let out. You may or may not be a girl-crazy, emotionally immature, mediocre sociopath.

But you sure are bothered. That's evident.

It's 2025 and the world's gone fucking ape shit. Maybe it's the end of everything. I don't know. Who knows.

Like most human beings on this raped-and-pillaged planet, you are forced to give a fuck about the state of worldly affairs. Even if the environmentalist organization you may or may not belong to is bureaucratic and ultimately ineffective. You're disenfranchised with the standard ways of legal protest, policy reform and door-knocking. Understandably so. It's an appropriate response. (No, taking quick showers and biking to work will not stop climate change—that aint on me!) You're pissed off at the current state of things, climate change, the plastic pollution of the sea, the capitalist-driven mass leveling of forests, jeopardizing all life like those cute fat-cheeked rodent motherfuckers hiding in the woods.

Something's very, very wrong—that the minority in charge of running the world either don't know what the fuck they're doing or, worst still, know what they're doing and simply don't give a fuck. (I'd venture to say it's the latter—the self-aware and more calculating blood-thirsty sociopath is a psychopath, after all).

This is what Ethan Goffman is throwing at you in his latest offering, The Church of the Oversoul and other Stories (UnCollected Press 2025).

It's one-part surrealism, one-part sci-fi social commentary, one-part philosophical/theological waxing and one-part dark and comedic literary fiction. And Goffman is our long-white-bearded, half-mad wizard-alchemist who mixes it all together and gives us the final product, the potion, in words and sentences expertly.

He does this, in part, by knowing that the two most important sentences of any short story are its first and last. For example, writes Goffman in his opening story "The Incident":

"When I first saw Vladimir Putin on television, in the early 2000s, I was instantly struck by an uncanny resemblance to my old friend—and enemy—Mike."

It's the story told by a virgin narrator of a group of friends (with a bully alpha male and his cohort of nerd underlings), worried and driven by the horniness and masculine insecurities plagued by all high school boys. Ultimately, after having enough of the bullying, the alpha's face is met by the awkward-yet-righteous fists of our teenage hero virgin (who ultimately gets his ass whooped). It's a wholesome and funny story.

Here's another example of a killer sentence, this time the ending from a funny sci-fi story about our inevitable AI overlord "Bertha":

"I awake with a spasm to light streaming through the blinds, mobs of birds chattering. Bertha, or something out there, loves me."

So you can see there's a lot going on here. It's hard to imagine any writer other than Goffman who could've brought together all these bizarre tales and presented them as a coherent and complete collection of short stories. Maybe you could or did or will. But I sure as hell can't.

But what I like most about the book is its impressive ability to put the characters at the forefront. Even in crazy, magical settings. Like in "Limbo is a Happenin' Place," the story about the bored soul of Jocelyn up in heaven whose curiosity leads her to purgatory. Little is said about what heaven actually looks like and what's going on up there. No, the story is almost exclusively a conversation between the protagonist and the Archangel Michael. Goffman chooses to focus on the relationship of individuals. The setting is secondary, the characters primary.

Goffman is an accomplished writer, a socially-conscious one. He is an author, poet, essayist, editor—and it shows. He writes urgently but never preachy (something of which I, as fellow politically-minded writer too, have yet to master).

So even if you're not into sci-fi stuff or stories about God and religion, check out The Church of the Oversoul and other Stories. You won't be disappointed, maybe just shocked a little. But that's good for you—a little shock. Because it's the end of the world, maybe. But we still have time before Bertha gets online.