Power

Power is the story of Brian Hopper, a Santa Fe, New Mexico liberal with a chip on his shoulder as concerns conservatives. He goes on vacation in Egypt and runs into a supernatural creature which offers him “tremendous” magical power for one year. Intrigued, he grabs the offer, only to find that the power is almost entirely destructive, and it pushes him constantly to kill people. Right after he is granted the power he claims his first victim, a thief who tries to make off with something of his. Then he kills a couple of thugs who attack him. As he gets more comfortable with this energy, he starts killing people by the thousands with his magic. The authorities begin to refer to him as a terrorist, and his sense of himself changes to someone who can kill anyone, anywhere, at any time and who is nearly unstoppable.

He offers his abilities to various Indian tribes, but none of them want anything to do with him, after he kills a thousand national guardsmen and policemen in Los Angeles. So he goes after a larger target, an entire nation, and destroys its infrastructure and kills a million of its citizens. Caught up in his expanding power, he returns to the United States and declares all-out war on conservatives. Cities crumble, but the conservatives are not defenseless, and they go after him as savagely as he goes after them. In the end his year is up, and his power drains away. He expects to be killed at any moment but is offered a last-minute way out. His adventure ends, but you’re right if you’re expecting such a tortured story to have an ambivalent ending. You’re reading this one to see how Brian manages his power, where he succeeds and where he falls short and what ultimately happens to him when his power fails.