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Calculating God is the new near-future SF thriller from the popular and award-winning Robert J. Sawyer. An alien shuttle craft lands outside the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. A six-legged, two-armed alien emerges, who says, in perfect English, "Take me to a paleontologist." It seems that Earth, and the alien's home planet, and the home planet of another alien species traveling on the alien mother ship, all experienced the same five cataclysmic events at about the same time (one example of these "cataclysmic events" would be the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs). Both alien races believe this proves the existence of God: i.e. he's obviously been playing with the evolution of life on each of these planets. From this provocative launch point, Sawyer tells a fast-paced, and morally and intellectually challenging, SF story that just grows larger and larger in scope. The evidence of God's universal existence is not universally well received on Earth, nor even immediately believed. And it reveals nothing of God's nature. In fact. it poses more questions than it answers. When a supernova explodes out in the galaxy but close enough to wipe out life on all three home-worlds, the big question is, Will God intervene or is this the sixth cataclysm:? Calculating God is SF on the grand scale. Calculating God is a 2001 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel.… (more)
User reviews
What I did like: Canadian-ness, the relationship between the Human and Forhilnor paleontologists, the sense of humour, and the Wreeds headology/vision/language.
On the plus side, the style, though not brilliant, does not suck.
The novel uses the trope of contact with aliens to explore cosmological ideas that intrigue
The main plot is told from the point of view of Tom Jericho, a paleontologist at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, and it begins with the appearance of a spider-like alien who is interested in studying the Earth's history with Jericho. The discussions they have also explore questions about the nature of the universe, comparative planetary history, and the ultimate question of the existence of God. On that issue the book presents some strange conundrums that make it rise above the average Science Fiction novel.
There is also a subplot dealing with the illness of Jericho and his imminent death due to lung cancer. The author neatly connects that with the visit of the aliens with surprising revelations as well.
I enjoyed the philosophical and scientific discussions primarily due to the inventive approaches to questions that arose from the unusual views of the aliens. Sawyer succeeds in describing the meeting with aliens in a way that held my attention through both its believable detail and its novelty. I found myself wondering about the thoughtful calculation of alien scientists and if they really could include god in that calculation.
Sawyer’s work is philosophical on many levels. The most obvious is the discussion between Hollus and Tom about the existence of God and the purpose of life. What God is, what he does and how he interacts with the universe are all addressed, but with interesting interpretation. While many of the arguments used by Hollus to prove the existence of God are also put forth by many religions on Earth, the book does not promote any religion, but it presents a situation where the universe is directed by an intelligent being. An intricate part of this plot line are the second alien race, the Wreed. Another interesting Sawyer alien, their view of the universe is determined by their physiology. For example, they have 23 fingers, which effected their ability to deal with numbers. While the Wreed do not have strong mathematics, they can easily deal with moral issues: whereas we struggle with the nature of good and evil, they could see the answer quickly and cleanly. As Sawyer puts it, they have “minded geared for ethics”. Sawyer does not ignore the reaction by religious Humans to the Aliens and follows two right-to-life supporters who eventually have a violent confirmation with Hollus and Dr. Jericho.
The differences between the aliens and Humans are easy to see, but Sawyer also shows the similarities. Dr. Jericho, narrator of most of the book, is dying of lung cancer with only a few months to live. Cancer exists also in the other alien races makeup and the Forhilnor can suffer from mental illnesses. The interactions between Hollus and Dr. Jericho present a different view of and are important to the end plot of the story.
Perhaps the most intriguing subplot is that Humans, Forhilnor and Wreeds are not the first intelligent life forms in the Universe. Six other star systems have evidence of past civilizations, all of which were abandoned and the inhabitants disappeared. Where the missing aliens went to leads to even greater discoveries for Dr. Jericho and will change his view of everything.
Calculating God is a work of philosophy, science, and humanity. Sawyer’s aliens are different and fascinating and the interplay between them and Dr. Jericho warming and entertaining. This a book for anyone interested the nature of life, the possibility of a divine being and the purpose of living.
For Fast Forward TV, 1/2001
I really enjoy Hollus, although I find him to be patronizing- Hollus doesn't grow in this story. He just is. Tom
Overall, it was a good read. Interesting concepts and well written.
A
At some point, I realized I would be more likely to believe in God after reading this book than by any religious proselytizing now common on planet Earth. Sci-Fi for the thinking man or woman.
Sawyer could be the next Asimov!
My number one complaint about this
That said, this is a fun, quick read that has some substance to it. I gave it 3.5 stars out of 5 because it isn't a truly epic piece that pulls you into another universe, but it's what I would consider classic Robert J. Sawyer fiction -- just under par from the Hominids series.
The tale itself is quite simple and the ending is rather odd and abrupt, which deserves some criticism; however, I'm willing to overlook it because of the intriguing discussions holding up the middle. There's also a fundamentalist, creationist group that seems out of place.
I'll resist posting all the ones I had to put the book aside and chew on, but here are two that just gave me pause.
1) given such an imperfect universe why do we expect the creator to be perfect? what are the implications if the the creator isn't?
2) the second were a few discussions on the divine limitations surrounding cancer.
heavy handed pokes at the Catholic church. While I'd agree that Christianity has a set of major problems, I think most readers and writers of
are throwing out the baby with the bathwater. That's what makes _Calculating God_ so interesting: it takes a new and fresh look at creationism. Oh, basic
religious issues have been looked at before, but the treatments that I've seen have been confined to the classic Adam-and-Eve storyline, or to the tiny
genre of Christian science fiction. Yeah, there are books in this genre, and the fact that you've most likely never heard of them proves my point. _calculating
God_, however, isn't particularly Christian; the ending proves the fact beyond all doubt. It manages to make points about the existence of God, and our
societies views on the matter, without preaching one religion or another. This is not a book to be read for plot or characters. In fact, it's seriously
lacking on both those fronts. As with most of Soier's work, I think it would be happier as a popular nonfiction text. Still, the quality of the ideas was
heigh enough to make up for the lack in...well, everything else.
This isn't a book packed with action. It involves a lot of talk and examination. I imagine that would bore some people; I was fascinated. At only a few points did I feel the info dumps were a bit too bunch. Really, this kind of heady examination of religion through science fiction is my jam. Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow is one of my favorite books of all time.
Where the book faltered for me in a HUGE way was a subplot involving two bumbling bad guys. (I won't go into details for the sake of spoilers). Not only were these characters tropes without a shred of nuance, but the entire plot ended up being completely irrelevant to the major events at the end of the book.
And wow, that ending delivered some major surprises and some genuine feelings, too. It's a shame that the bad taste of that unneeded subplot continued to linger. Even so, I do recommend this if you like books that address theology through science fiction. This read will stay with me--because of the good aspects, and unfortunately, the not-so-good.
Much of the book consists of philosophical discussions between the alien and Jericho about God and whether He exists, but these discussions are not too heavy-handed or dense, and there is quite enough happening plot-wise to keep a casual reader happy. There's also an interesting subplot regarding the politics of museum funding. One subplot I could have done without involved two religious fundamentalists who have been bombing abortion clinics, and who are now plotting to bomb the museum's evolution exhibit. Overall, a good read if you like this genre.
Calculating God is an introduction to the evolution vs. intelligent design debate, as Sophie's World is to philosophy.
(Creationism, on the other hand, is merely represented by a straw man that
I expected to find sound science to be the basis of the book, with some interesting theories on the possibilities of intelligent design. Some comparative paleontology, interesting theories on the development of life on other planets would have been quite welcome. Mostly I was looking for thoughtful reasoning of a scientific theory that included the possibility of an outside developmental force. What I found was the shouting of a man who apparently is so unsure of his own beliefs he has to scream loudly enough to drown out his own questions.
I am not opposed to the concept of intelligent design. The cosmos is, indeed, a wondrous thing. More wondrous, I believe, than even the most highly educated and thoughtful of us are psychologically capable of fully comprehending. The majority of human beings are, as a group, incapable of grasping the concept of a universe in which we are not the centre of attention. It was not all that long ago that humans were imprisoning or murdering anyone who had the audacity to suggest that the Earth wasn't the centre of the universe. The concept that there might actually be other planets that held intelligent life would have required burning at the stake or ripping apart by horses. Not only the person in question, but all their friends and family in all likelihood. The briefest study of the evening news would seem to indicate that there are numerous folk who still believe this way. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, in my estimation, as long as they don't cause harm to others in the dispensation of those beliefs.
From the evidence of all too recent holy wars, the majority of the population still believe that a cosmos consisting of, as Carl Sagan would say, `billions and billions of stars', stars which could contain hundreds of thousands or more of planets capable of supporting life, still revolves around this beautiful little blue speck on a distant arm of a more distant, insignificant galaxy in the hinterlands of the universe.
The author had an opportunity in this book to write something thought provoking, solid, and forward looking. It is a shame that he fell so far short of the goal we thought he was reaching for, and fell into a morass of pseudo psychobabble wearing a mask meant to mimic scientific thought.
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