The Absolute at Large, is a science fiction novel written by Czech author Karel Čapek in 1922. The first sentence opens the story on New Year's Day 1943 - a future date at the time of writing - and describes the fundamental transformations in society as the result of a new mystical source of virtually free energy.
Plot
The story centers on the invention of a reactor that can annihilate matter to produce cheap and abundant energy. Unfortunately, it produces something else as a by-product, the absolute. The absolute is a spiritual essence that according to some religious philosophies permeates all matter. It is associated with human religious experience, as an unsuspecting humanity is to find out all too soon in the story. The widespread adoption of the reactors cause an enormous outpouring of pure absolute into the world. This leads to an outburst of religious and nationalist fervor, causing the greatest, most global war in history. Čapek describes this war in a self-consciously absurd manner. Characteristic of the war are distant military marches, hence for example "battles of the Chinese with the Senegalese riflemen on the shores of the Finnish lakes." Some of the more prominent political changes the war causes include expulsion of the Russian army to Africa by the Chinese invasion, the conquest of East Asia by Japan that cuts the Chinese conquests in Russia and Europe down to the limits of the former Austro-Hungarian empire, and the Japanese conquest of North America. Absolute does more than affect minds. It also does physical work. During the war, it causes catastrophes against the enemy. At some point, it also becomes interested in production of material goods and produces them, in a supernatural manner, in enormous quantities. This leads to economic collapse and, absurdly enough, deficit of all manufactured items because, allegedly, once the price of goods has dropped to zero because of absolute, nobody cares to produce or distribute them any more. Starvation is averted because absolute does not produce food, and the peasants who do not let the price drop to zero. In fact, they force every last penny from the urban populationin return for food, hence saving humanity. This is a satirical reference to the very real phenomenon of bag people who bring food to the cities from the countryside in times of economic and political collapse.
Critical reception
R. D. Mullen called the novel "one of the genuine masterpieces of SF", but noted that "it has surely had no great influence on popular SF".
