"When Kalki was published in 1978, it looked to be something of an artistic retrenchment for Vidal, an improbable entertainment in the sci-fi genre that afforded him the opportunity to exercise his spleen on some old friends — grasping politicians, the popular media, and credulous religionists. In retrospect however the novel seems a remarkably insightful cautionary tale and, further, represents an important developmental phase in the Vidal canon. For instance the themes that Vidal addressed straightforwardly in Messiah (1954) — religious hysteria and manipulation of the popular will by the commercial media — are expanded surrealistically in Kalki. These concerns will later be addressed comically, and more effectively yet, in Live from Golgotha (1992). The more serious his purposes, it seems, the more extravagant are Vidal's conceits. Briefly, Kalki is a futuristic affair with a messianic prophet of doom who would save the planet by annihilating the human race."