Many of us are currently living in a grim dark dystopia that isn't too far removed from Warhammer 40K.

I've been reading a Warhammer 40K novel by author Ben Counter that's called Daemon World. I started reading it, because I wanted to explore (more fully) the world of Warhammer 40K ahead of some movies and possible television series that are going to be headed our way (assuming that Covid hasn't permanently stopped those plans).

Anyway, Ben is a good author, but I'm not yet to a point where I'd recommend a particular book in my Warhammer 40K exploration. They are...different, and yet oddly the same. The one called Daemon Lord is constant fighting, pretty much from the first chapter to the last. I've never read anything like it with just constant exposition, and pages and pages of exhaustive descriptions of this and that "named thing" killing this or that "other named thing" in the most gruesome way possible. When I explain these things to people I know who play the game, they say, "Yup...that sounds like what this world is like. In the future, there is only war." This quote is actually from the game material, and it's from the page just inside the cover. I'll post the quote below:

"It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

"Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds...they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants, and worse.

"To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war."

One of the weird things that occurred to me in my reflections of the stories I've read is that this "mantra" of the Warhammer 40K world could be rewritten for what's going on for many of us in the world today. So, I gave it a shot. Here's how it came out:

"It is the 21st century. For more than four years a King has sat on the golden throne of the most powerful country on Earth. He is the master of deception by the will of his cultists, and has the inexhaustible might of his armies giving him providence to threaten and rage. He is the Carrion Lord of end-stage capitalism for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day to a dreaded disease, so that he and his cohorts will never have to physically labor for anything.

"To be a man in such times is to be one among untold millions. It is to live in a cruel regime that calls its wage slaves by the term 'essential worker.' Forget the power of science, for half the population has turned away from such learning, and few of them understand the technology that they use everyday. Lies are spread like truth as long as there's money to be made, the disabled are vilified, and the lazy and entitled are everywhere. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only toil and drudgery.

"You will never earn enough to stop working, and work itself will expose you to a deadly disease. You will work for every hour of your life, from morning until night, with no end, for as far as you can see. And the world burns without end as a result of human caused climate change." 

So what do you think? It seems legit, and it allows me to sort through some thoughts about our modern times. Folks, many of us are living in a grim dark dystopia that isn't too far removed from Warhammer 40K. Lucky us.