Theological Science Fiction (Was: Silk for calde blog: Wolfe thesis)

Adam Thornton · 22 Sep 2009, 21:07 · from 2009-September.txt.gz

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From: adam at io.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:07:16 -0500
Subject: (urth) Theological Science Fiction (Was: Silk for calde blog:
	Wolfe thesis)
In-Reply-To: <65D78AC2-9334-4BEA-A828-69ED3EEE20BA at phyast.nhn.ou.edu>
References: <65D78AC2-9334-4BEA-A828-69ED3EEE20BA at phyast.nhn.ou.edu>
Message-ID: <22E22987-BDD5-4DEE-BC1A-53904CB91977 at io.com>


On Sep 22, 2009, at 3:34 PM, Kieran Mullen wrote:
>
> 	(3)  The author leaves it ambiguous.
>
>
>
> Stories of the 1a variety are not always happy - James Blish's  
> "Black Easter,"  for example.   One of my favorite type (3)'s is  
> Blish's "A Case of Conscience."    An example of 1b is Phillip  
> Farmer's "Mask of Chaos,"  in which the characters vie for influence  
> on a sort of universe-consciousness that is only starting to come to  
> sentience.

I don't think _A Case of Conscience_ is at ALL ambiguous.

I also think it started out promising and then went in precisely the  
least interesting direction it could have gone.  Not a fan.  Russ  
Allbery has put it well here: http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-345-24480-X.html

Adam

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