Reviews for Chronicles of a comer, and other religious science fiction stories

The average rating for Chronicles of a comer, and other religious science fiction stories based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-09-24 00:00:00 Michael Stewart An anthology with some surprisingly big names, but the stories are only so-so. Poul Anderson writes a clumsy story within a story about a man's experience with an alien race that has a different solution to the problem of theodicy-why God permits evil. It's not up to his usual work, and doesn't explore his idea as much as it should. Edward Hoch's story is about a small native american community after the bomb. It's more earnest than the others, but it reads very much like a white man writing it, and really just meanders around a mystery tale. Barry Malzberg's story is interesting, especially from him-he used one of his pseudonyms on it, and it's about a logical accountant who begins to believe in the Second Coming. Philip Jose Farmer's tale is the best out of the bunch. What if Revelation literally happened, but then you weren't sure it really was intended by God? The J. Hunter Holly story is probably the worst, just a typical natives are good, and colonizers are bad dressed up with Christian earnestness. Ray Bradbury's story has been seen in other anthologies, and ironically is the only non-Christian one in the bunch. It's actually gnostic: good=spirit, bad=matter. Well done in technique, but if you bought this to read Christian SF you'll catch that apart from the priestly characters it's a bit of a cheat. A good story would have been about what good and evil means when you have been disembodied. It's interesting because it's a historical oddity: religious SF is rare altogether, and an anthology in the seventies of it even rarer. Unfortunately it reads a lot like people who understand it with their head trying to fit religious themes into stories without believing in them. To write it well needs a person not only to believe in the faith, they must also have doubted it or have been skeptical enough to think "Why?" on many aspects of it. I think these writers get the skepticism, but not so much the devout belief.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-04-24 00:00:00 Scott Berge Some of my favorite science fiction stories about religion are in this short collection. The Problem of Pain by Poul Anderson reminds me of the passage in Deuteronomy, where Moses asks, "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you..." The Biblical answer starts with fear and ends with the Ten Commandments, but Anderson's story asks what would happen if an alien's god wanted something different. Towards the Beloved City by Phillip Jose Farmer isn't just a great science fiction story about religion, it great short story that transcends genre. By contrasting sci fi cliches (alien invasion!) with religious belief (apocalypse!) Farmer forces the reader into a state of confusion and anxiety that mirrors the emotions felt by the protagonist as he (and we) try to figure out what is true--at least in the context of the story. If he is asking, "This is Revelation, isn't it?" then we are asking, "Isn't this supposed to be science fiction?" Chronicles of a Comer A story in the style of Diary of a Madman, this is the interior monologue of a man whose belief in the Second Coming waxes and wanes. When he says "reality has once again overtaken me; joyfully I will confront it," it is not clear to me if the author intends us to think he has finally lost it or not--which is part of the thrill of the story. In This Sign by Ray Bradbury features a delightful Episcopal missionary, looking forward to the possibility of discovering new sins on Mars. What he finds, however, more closely resembles the "lilies of the field." The Wolfram Hunters by Edward D. Hoch and The Gift of Nothing by Joan C. Holly feature cringe-making stereotypes of Native Americans and are not among my favorite religious science fiction stories.