Lit Novelist Confesses Nerd Love For Sci Fi Classic: The Absolute at Large by Karel Capek

Lit Novelist Confesses Nerd Love For Sci Fi Classic : NPR: 

In The Absolute at Large, the fate of all mankind hangs in the balance as the world is overtaken by fundamentalist religious fervor caused by an invention called the Karburator that produces free energy and releases "God" or "the Absolute" as a byproduct; something initially mistaken by the novel's protagonist as a poison gas because of the way it affects people's behavior.

Once God is unlocked from all of the places it resides, a multiplicity of religions spring up — the church of industrial machinery and the church of the merry-go-round compete for worshippers while the businessman who invented the Karburator hides in the mountains away from the deleterious side effects of new energy (one of which is giving money to the poor).

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