New Books on Religion in SF Acquired

In a recent attempt to build my library on the blog's central topic, I procured several tomes, some of which have begun trickling in. Here are the titles of our library's new additions:

Gabriel McKee's history of religion in science fiction.


A collection of essays on religion in science fiction.


A collection of short stories dealing with religious themes; includes classics like "A Canticle for Liebowitz," "The Cold Equations," and "The Nine Billion Names of God."


A discussion of how science fiction sometimes gives rise to new religions.


A book on how to use science fiction parables in Christian sermons (ugh).


Deals with apocalyptic visions in science fiction.

Mark Shea Discusses Catholicism in Sci-Fi

Mark Shea, obsessive Catholic blogger and writer, has a fine op-ed piece, "Science Fiction and the Areopagus," up at InsideCatholic.

Not that I don't enjoy science fiction and fantasy novels and films, not least because they constitute perhaps the principal place in our culture where it is routine, expected, normal, and welcome to discuss matters of both theology and philosophy. [more...]

He mentions a number of Catholic writers and works dealing with Catholicism in the piece. His comments are thoughtful, and he suggests that sf and fantasy are just about the only forum left in our culture where someone can present an intelligent discussion of philosophy and religion.

He forgets to mention one important Catholic sf work, however: Space Vulture by Gary K. Wolf and the archbishop of Newark. My copy's in the mail right now, and there's a chance I'll drop everything else and read it as soon as it gets here. Gene Wolfe, a Catholic and one of the greatest sf writers of the age, has complimented it, so it should be good.

Hat tip: Claw of the Conciliator

SF Signal's Mind Meld

The blog SF Signal has a section called the "Mind Meld" that polls sf writers and enthusiasts on interesting topics.

The topic for the latest Mind Meld is, "Is science fiction antithetical to religion?"

They asked me for a contribution, so you can see my modest little essay on the subject wedged between much more substatial responses from big-name authors. Particularly, I recommend the lengthy essay from John C. Wright:

Science fiction thrives on the Horror of Darwinism. That sense of weirdness is a twin brother to the Sense of Wonder of American pulp fiction. We science fiction people like it when Copernicus yanks the world out from under our feet: to us, it is like a roller-coaster ride.

Is the disorientation of Darwinism antithetical to religion? Maybe or maybe not, but H.G. Wells, Progressive, is antithetical to religion. The last line of the book is telling. The narrator is looking up at the stars. "There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than animal within us must find its solace and its hope."

In other words, the soul of man (that which is more than animal in us) can find solace and hope, not in religion, but in the vast and eternal laws of matter, i.e. in physical science. Even though the book never mentions God, the moral atmosphere of the tale is rich with those odors that waft from Victorian notions of Progress, Eugenics, Darwinism, Materialism. The Progressives will instinctively recognize the scent and smile.

Progressives, let us not forget, regard religion as one of those things to be left behind on the junk pile of history, along with monarchy, slavery, femininity, personal property, marriage, death and taxes, and whatever else will not exist in the Brave New World of our loving Big Brother. [more...]

For the opposing view, the best probably comes from James Morrow:

To the degree that science fiction is the literature spun from human insights into the laws of nature, then it is indeed the last place a person should look for corroboration of the Christian worldview or any other frankly religious perspective. For better or worse - better, in my opinion - science has yet to provide a single molecule of evidence for the supernatural, and so far every attempt to make the empirical substantiate the ethereal, from the laboratory testing of the Shroud of Turin to the crude appropriation of particle physics by various self-styled mystics, has come to nothing. [more...]

What's Wrong with Star Trek?

In yet another attempt to alienate a sizable number of our readers (alienate--what a fine word), I must pass along this fine little piece from io9. Entitled "The Worst Thing Star Trek Did to Science Fiction," it explains one of the many, many, many reasons Star Trek really kind of sucks. Yeah, you heard me.

There are many things that annoy us about science fiction: godlike beings, lazy time-travel paradoxes, actions that don't have consequences... but luckily, there's one thing that epitomizes all of them: the reset button. Whenever the unthinkable happens, you can be pretty sure science fiction will unthink it. Click through for the many evils of the reset button. [more...]

Actually, I like the original series, but the spin-offs suck bad. I see that one commenter on io9 is of the same opinion as myself: "Star Trek has sucked since they started having star ships with carpeting." Yeah, whose dumb idea was that? Spaceships should have exposed bulkheads and pipes and slime dripping off the walls.

Simak on Sci-Fi and D. G. D. on Fantasy

The other day, I was in a used bookstore and picked up a copy of Sf the Other Side of Realism, a collection of critical essays on science fiction, edited by Thomas D. Clareson. Inside the front is an interesting quote from Clifford D. Simak.

It has always seemed to me that if there were such a thing as "mainstream," science fiction should belong, at least marginally, to it, for everyone who writes, whatever he may write, does so within the parameters of a literary tradition that has evolved, developed, and changed through the years. And the effort to disassociate fantasy (which is pretty much an undefinable term) and science fiction (which is perhaps as much so) arises from the intricate business of arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I don't think that we should attempt to distinguish between the two, and that the writer, especially, should disregard any artificial line that exists between them. The best stories, it seems to me, are fantasies, whether they be based on solid scientific extrapolation, or on engineering concepts carried to an ultimate point, or on something else.

I have to say, "or on something else" is a bit weaselly, isn't it?

I agree with Simak, except maybe for the statement about the "best" stories being fantasies. I'm sure I've said something like that myself, but it's an opinion I've now abandoned. There are other people whose tastes don't run to fantasy, and those tastes are as legitimate as mine. I've decided I don't care for literary elitism, whether it comes from sf-fans or non-fans. Fantasy and science fiction, I am coming to believe, are merely forms of artistic expression, neither more nor less legitimate than other forms. They are useful for expressing certain things and less useful for expressing others, for which we have other art forms.

It is probably this relaxed opinion that leads me to be so opposed to the uptight attacks on fantasy often heard today from certain Christian circles, where fantasy is either opposed in its entirety or, more commonly, subjected to a rigorous set of arbitrary and self-contradictory rules purposely designed so that no authors may pass muster unless named Lewis or Tolkien.

To the people who make such rules, I say this. In this same volume, SF: The Other Side of Realism, is an essay by Lionel Stevenson, "Science Fiction as Romance." He makes mention of W. D. Howells, who insisted "that all fiction was immoral unless it was confined to the everyday behavior and language of ordinary people" (pp. 98-99). Howells's rule is strict, but it can be consistently followed. The rules of today's Christian fantasy fan, who wants to have his cake and eat it too, cannot be consistently followed. It is no good to approve Tolkien's elves and wizards in one breath and condemn Rowling's wizards and witches in the next. Either give up fantasy entirely like Howells or else accept all of fantasy's tropes. The real moral concern in a work of fantasy is the same as in any other story: it is the underpinning philosophy that the writer conveys, not the magic and other devices he uses to convey it.

News from the Fish Bowl

I only have time for a short post today because I got a new letter from Rocky (I'm so excited!) but anyway I hafta hurry so here goes:

GM may Develop a Car that Drives Itself

Once again, sci-fi ideas become reality. GM is working on developing cars that can drive themselves, as reported by John D. Stoll for the Wall Street Journal. No word on whether or not self-driving GM vehicles would be able to transform into giant robots.

The Wisdom (?) of Robert Heinlein

Columnist Becca Bacon Martin reflects on "life lessons" from Robert Heinlein, including:

Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, etc., ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth. [more...]

How pleasant.

Adam Roberts Has Written a Book on the History of Science Fiction

As reported in Fabula, Roberts's book The History of Science Fiction

...argues that, even today, this flourishing cultural idiom is shaped by the forces that determined its rise to prominence in the 1600s: the dialogue between Protestant and Catholic worldviews, the emerging technologies of the industrial age, and the cultural anxieties and excitements of a rapidly changing world. [more...]

Kissing Science Fiction Style

Some time back, Claw of the Conciliator put up a post alerting us to two other blog posts discussing various philosophers' and various theologians' views on kissing. It suddenly struck me to ask, what have various science fiction writers said about kissing? In honor of these other posts on the subject of kissing, I now offer a brief list. Feel free to suggest additions.

The Isaac Asimov Kiss: A thousand-year period of darkness is coming, during which kissing will be impossible.

The Arthur C. Clarke Kiss: You can kiss in hard vacuum if you're quick about it.

The Robert A. Heinlein Kiss: If you grok Martian, you can kiss anyone you want...and you should spend four years in the military.

The Hal Clement Kiss: An essay on the physics of kissing will follow the story.

The C. S. Lewis Kiss: "I cannot bear the least suggestion, no matter how sportive, of kissing between different species or even between children."

The J. R. R. Tolkien Kiss: As there is no room in the novel, the kissing has been relegated to an appendix.

The H. P. Lovecraft Kiss: "I have seen all that the universe has to hold of horror, and now even the kisses of pretty girls will ever afterwards be poison to me."

The Charles Stross Kiss: I'm so sick of your %^&*# backwards social conventions! Just %^&*# kiss her!

The F. Paul Wilson Kiss: A gratuitous and graphic kissing scene will be inserted into the middle of the novel to maintain the reader's interest.

The Christopher Paolini Kiss: More-or-less a combination of the Anne McCaffrey Kiss, the J. R. R. Tolkien Kiss, and the George Lucas Kiss.

The Jeff Smith Kiss: Hand-holding, hugging, and group nude bathing are acceptable, but no kissing!

Movie Review: Dark City

That's some fine sf!

Dark City, directed by Alex Proyas. New Line Cinema. Starring Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jennifer Connelly. Screenplay by Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs, and David S. Goyer. Runtime 96 minutes. Rated R.

Read other reviews here.

I know I haven't been blogging much lately; things are topsy-turvy here and I'm likely to be moving soon, which naturally makes the blogging erratic.

This movie's been around for about a decade, but it came out when I was in high school and R-rated movies were forbidden. I knew it was likely to be something special when it came out; now, at last, I've seen it.

The movie's greatest drawback is that it's confusing. The quick editing keeps it from getting dull, but it also renders it occasionally incoherent. A number of times in the movie, I was wondering where exactly the characters were in relation to each other. As a result, some of the sequences were less meaningful than they should have been, especially the action sequences. Probably the second-greatest problem is the odd insertion of gratuitous nudity in the film's beginning. They must have been afraid of bombing at the box office if they didn't make an R-rating on this thriller, which isn't especially scary or thrilling.

Dark City succeeds mainly by combining so many good tropes. We have the film noir setting with the creepy city, old cars, and stark lighting. We have a pretty good set of scary villains in The Strangers, who are pale white, talk in weird deadpan voices, and wear trench coats and black hats. Oh, and they carry knives. These are supposed to be powerful, high-tech aliens, but their favorite weapon is the knife. Go figure.

Story-wise, the greatest mistake is the film's need to explain the premise three times. Yes, I get it: The Strangers are aliens who have kidnapped a bunch of humans and stuck them Somewhere Else in this atmospheric city to run nightly experiments on them after putting the whole city to sleep. They have one human scientist who works for them and knows everything. There's one guy (Rufus Sewell) for whom the experiment goes wrong, and for reasons never explained, he has some of the aliens' psychic powers. It's a good little premise, but it isn't especially original or convoluted. Hearing the same character (Kiefer Sutherland) lecture on it three times over is a bit much. I especially dislike that he gives this lecture right at the beginning, so from the start there's little mystery. It might have been better if they'd set up the story a little more tightly so I could be happily confused for, say, ten minutes before Dr. Explainslove shows up.

The plot follows some recognizable motifs. As a nod to the noir inspirations, there's a gruesome murder right at the beginning and a hard-boiled detective (William Hurt) who's looking for the murderer. Coupled to the serial murder plot is the classic hero-who-wakes-up-with-no-memories-and-has-to-discover-his-true-destiny-and-save-the-world motif. This oldie but goodie has become such a cliché of fantasy/sf, I think only inexperienced plot-makers are unafraid to use it; for example, I point the reader to Doug Chiang's Robota, a medium-good picture book with a plot so uninspired even Orson Scott Card's enthusiastic writing doesn't save it. On top of that, half the illustrations, excellent as they are, have nothing to do with that story...but I'm getting off topic.

Let's face it, though: The no-memory hero is a great idea, and I bet it still has juice in it if a solid writer uses it. For one thing, it gives the reader or viewer a comfortable way of being introduced to the fantasy/sf world--through the eyes of the protagonist.

So I can, with some hesitation, recommend Dark City. Certainly its noir set design is worth seeing if nothing else.

The Sci Fi Catholic's Rating for Dark City:

Myth Level: High (some classic motifs including the hero on a journey of self-discovery who turns and saves others)

Quality: Medium (nice city, now would you let me look at it?)

Ethics/Morality: Medium (some problematic scenes at the beginning)

Book Review: Hollow Earth

You might not want to live inside this book.

Hollow Earth by David Standish. Da Capo Press, Cambridge: 2006. 303 pages. ISBN-10: 0-306-81373-4.

If you not only read sf but read about sf, take a look at Standish's Hollow Earth. Though not intentionally focused on science fiction, he spends most of his time talking about it.

This book is a short history of hollow earth ideas from the time of Sir Edmond Halley to the present. To explain abnormalities in the Earth's magnetic field, Halley proposed that the Earth is hollow, and things haven't been the same since.

Standish describes the misbegotten notions of John Cleves Symmes, who believed and taught, for no good reason, that the Earth is hollow and has openings at the poles. He discusses Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth and makes a convincing argument that Verne plagiarized large parts of it.

Probably his most interesting chapter is on Cyrus Teed and the religion he founded, Koreshanity, which teaches not only that the Earth is hollow but that we're living on its inner, concave surface. His description of the religion is lucid, apparently well researched, and generally free of Standish's sarcastic comments, which grow old after a few chapters. The basic purpose of Teed's religion, apparently, is to replace a fathomless universe with one finite, comforting, and womblike.

From that point forward, the most interesting parts of the book are over. Genuine hollow earth theories are replaced by a parade of science fiction stories, which Standish summarizes. He spends extra time on the Pellucidar stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs, beginning with At the Earth's Core. He's hard on Burroughs, though admittedly, Burroughs novels, exciting at first, get dull after you've read three or four of them, and Standish apparently read every Pellucidar novel he could get to write this chapter. That could leave a man frustrated.

Hollow Earth eventually peters out with a few New Agey things off the Internet, specifically dealing with the underground New Age paradise of Agartha. Unfortunately, Standish doesn't spend much time giving the details or history of this myth.

The book would be more enjoyable if Standish didn't have such a wiseguy attitude. In particular, an absence of sarcasm would have made his errors more bearable. He mistakenly characterizes The Lord of the Rings as a hollow earth story, apparently led astray by the term "Middle Earth," which Tolkien borrows from the Norse mythology that constitutes his major source. Standish also dismisses all (all, mind you) thought before the Enlightenment as "dreamy romanticism," which is ridiculously inaccurate. Standish comes across as feeling awfully high and mighty for having the privilege of living in the modern age and having his personal opinions. His attitude is sometimes insufferable.

For those who like to know the history of sf ideas, this book is worth reading in spite of its drawbacks. To Standish's credit, his summaries of sf novels never quite grow entirely wearisome.

New Books via Locus

Check out Locus Magazine's list of new books from the second week of April. Looks like some interesting stuff has come out, including a new Oxford dictionary of science fiction.

E-Mail Answer

D. G. D., like Cthulhu, will answer your e-mail.

I recently got an e-mail asking the following:

Dear Mr. Davidson,

First, I love your blog. It's great
to see your site and also know there's a webring out there that is safe to
surf. I had to abandon my 40-year devotion to sci fi because I could no
longer trust that I wouldn't read something hideously evil (I still have images
and smells in my head that I wish I'd never read) or the usual anti-Catholic
cant.

Secondly - a request please. Do you know the
best place to go to know if a writer is "safe" to read? I loved "Good
Omens" and would love to try more Neil Gaiman, but if it's a really good novel
and lesson in how to disrespect God or the Church, I don't want to touch
it. I'm too good at coming up with "what if's" myself, and don't need
anyone to give me more information to lead me astray.

Thank you. And if there isn't such a place, your site is still great, and I plan
on coming here frequently.

Yes, there is a place. A happy place, where...oh, wait. Lost my train of thought. Well, the world is a dangerous place, and Fäerie is more dangerous still, so I can't help with that, at least at the moment. But here is my response to the e-mail, slightly edited.

That's an interesting question. I don't think it has an easy answer. I spoke to a priest recently about the issue. Being a writer, I'm obligated to read. This priest suggested that it's not good to read anything that "stirs up" obvious temptation. That's my first answer to the question. You need to use good discernment and a well-formed conscience to determine exactly what that is. The answer then is to stop reading anything you're reading that you think you shouldn't be.

The second answer is to read actively. Don't approach anything you read or watch without seriously considering it and thinking about what it means. I don't think that means you need to try to draw an anti-Christian spin out of anything you read, but it does mean you need to seriously consider what you're reading, trying to pick out both positive aspects and deficiencies. Anything you read will contain both.

Also, seek out wholesome books. That may mean some trial and error. As for Neil Gaiman, I can't help you much there because all I've read of him so far is his Sandman comics, which is probably the sort of thing you're trying to avoid. His children's books are likely cleaner.

As for anti-Catholic rants, if you're strongly Catholic, this may not be a serious problem. It may even inspire you to learn more about the faith and how to defend it. I'm not trying to encourage you to read books that might damage your faith, of course, but speaking purely from personal experience, I think Pullman's His Dark Materials probably encouraged me to become Catholic, and Stross's Glasshouse has encouraged me to be a stronger Catholic. Both of them present cartoonish anti-Catholic rants of the sort that are relatively easy to dismantle, and the process of dismantling them gets me thinking seriously about my faith. You may not wish to read Glasshouse, though, because it has a lot of sexual content.

In the non-fiction section, find some works with good overviews of Catholic apologetics for starters. Though, again, I don't want to encourage you to read anything you think you shouldn't, getting a solid base of Catholic doctrine and apologetics will greatly lessen the impact of any reading you might encounter that will raise doubts.

Another thing I might add while I'm thinking about it is, read books that inspire chastity. This is necessary whether you're reading sf or not. Get some good overviews of The Theology of the Body, like a DVD series or a book by Christopher West, and then follow that up with some reading that depicts marriage or romance in a wholesome way and carries the sort of emotional impact that makes it stick in your mind. Paradise Lost is reasonably good on that side of things, and it's something everyone ought to read anyway.

I'm just about finished with Jane Eyre, and though I don't care for it too much, I know a lot of women do, and it seems to be wholesome and I'll probably recommend it. I think Bone is good for this if the reader has a solid Catholic foundation, though it probably has a heavier impact on male readers. I know Lewis recommended The Faerie Queene, but I haven't read it yet; it does contain some anti-Catholic allegory, but that's probably not much of a problem.

On the less-reading-more-praying side of things, keep Jesus always before your mind's eye.

D. G. D.

Christian Metaphor from SF at Claw of the Conciliator

Elliot at Claw of the Conciliator has a humorous post on mythological imagery in fantasy and science fiction in tandem with Christian themes:

Seeker: So, what do Good Friday and Easter mean, anyways?

Jane Christian: It's like Gandalf fighting the Balrog, sacrificing his life to save his friends, going down into the depths of Hell to defeat evil, at the cost of his own life. And then coming back, even greater than before, to lead his friends on to victory!

John Christian: That simply isn't Lewisian enough. I prefer to think of it in terms of Aslan's death on the Stone Table - the penalty for Edmund's crime had to be paid, but in order to spare him, Aslan took that penalty upon himself. And in so doing, he subverted, or superverted, the old law of the Deep Magic... [more...]

Catholicism in Science Fiction

The Catholic Wiki Project has an impressive list of references to Catholicism in science fiction, courtesy of the extensive research of Speculative Catholic. Check out this list. It's rather breathtaking.

For example, there's a reference to Stephen Baxter's "Inherit the Earth," with a robotic pope, and Lester Del Rey's "The Eleventh Commandment," which is about contraception. And many, many more.

Myers + Wolf = Outer Space Adventure

Claw of the Conciliator and American Papist both scooped me on this one, but I'm going to tell you anyway:

Archbishop John J. Myers and Gary K. Wolf are writing a novel entitled Space Vulture. You can be sure The Sci Fi Catholic will be reviewing that one!

Check out the links to their posts (above).

Short Story: The Soul Chamber, Part 1

Time to spice things up. Here we have the beginning of a three-part short story, a special privilege for our loyal readers. Enjoy. And if you enjoy, tell your friends.

The Soul Chamber

© D. G. D. Davidson

Cyril swept back the hood of his transpositional cloak and gazed up at the angry red stone that hung miles overhead in blank imitation of a sky. Huge stalactites clung to it like deformed clouds. A steady rain of ash fluttered to the ground as if strewn by a volcano preparing for a full burst. Harsh winds, terribly hot, whipped about the hellscape. Soot-belching fires, the only lights in the underworld, blazed in the distance, intermittently illuminating the cracks and rifts in the sharp rocks covering the ground.

He turned his gaze to the massive complex occupying the center of the gigantic cavern--a fully modernized, concrete-and-steel Tower of Babel. Layers upon layers of defensive walls, bunkers, living facilities, armories, and laboratories culminated in a black cylinder five hundred feet high and three hundred wide: the Soul Chamber. Pouring into its top through an orifice in the cavern roof was a continuous stream of cold blue light.

Cyril’s associates had done their job properly. They had spent days hacking and overhauling the locator and signaling systems on the transpositional cloak, and their efforts were effective. It would have been best if he had transposed directly to the Soul Chamber’s interior, but the security and phantasmal disruption were too high there. But he had transposed outside the receiving station and his arrival was likely undetected. Nothing more could have been hoped.

He felt around his midriff, touching the large packets of plastic explosives the cloak concealed. They felt as they had before he transposed. All to the good. Still searching, he brought his hand to the small Bible in his shirt pocket. Fumbling his hand down the cloak’s collar, he brought the Bible out. It would be good to read before continuing the mission:

Number not thyself among the multitude of sinners, but remember that wrath will not tarry long. Humble thyself greatly, for the vengeance of the ungodly is fire and worms.

Flames raged about him as he walked. The way was treacherous, but there were twisting paths that skirted the fire pits. He had memorized the map before transposing, but one misstep could mean disaster truly worse than death.

It seemed that no one dying here could escape, though perhaps, Cyril thought, there was an exception for the holy. Perhaps his mission was holy and his death would send him to the other place. That place also existed, apparently, since many of the dead on Earth were missing and unaccounted for in the Soul Chamber.

“Someday we will storm that place too,” the Chamber Ministers and generals of the Afterlife Brigade had solemnly announced to the public. Such messages consoled those who had family members who could not be resurrected, but souls missing and unaccounted for were growing fewer in number.

Cyril stumbled along the rock-strewn plain. His brother Tad had been twice to the Soul Chamber; twice his body had been repaired and his soul reunited with it. Once was for alcohol poisoning, the other was for a car wreck--driving under the influence. After the second time, he wore a T-shirt, “Been to Hell and Back.” On the reverse side, it said, “Twice!”

It was after the second time that Cyril joined the True Believers sect, a group adamantly opposed to the Soul Chamber. Cyril wasn’t certain he was really a True Believer when he joined, but he was disgusted enough with the world to hate the Soul Chamber. And the advertisements for the new regime irked him further:

Go ahead--sin.

The ultimate indulgence.

It’s Earth on Hell.

Pandemonium was poorly fortified.

Dis has been dis-missed.

A dead man just needs some A.I.R. (Artificially Induced Resurrection, available at the Soul Chamber).

It took an angel to get Dante to the center of hell. All we needed were tanks.

After his conversion, Cyril told his brother and father, at every available occasion, that they were going to hell.

“I know,” Tad laughed. “I been twice. It’s almost fun. Major trip.”

“If you don’t repent, someday you’ll stay,” Cyril answered.

“Yeah, you just try and keep me there. What you got against the Soul Chamber, Cyril? Next thing, you’ll be attacking the sterilization program or the genetic and nanotech programs.”

“I’m already against them,” Cyril answered. “Some are working on deactivating their nanoprobes and reversing sterilization the way the government does when they want to replace the criminals they put in eternal confinement.”

“Then stop bothering me and go hang with them,” Tad argued. “Medicine’s cured all those things--disease, age, pregnancy. And now the Soul Chamber has even cured death. Why would you want to go back to the old ways--consequences, eternal punishment? Who wants all that? Who needs all that?”

Cyril’s father was milder than Tad. He had retreated from the world when his wife had died; she had not appeared in the Soul Chamber.

“Don’t you want to follow Mom?” Cyril asked.

His father hardly looked up from the holo-V. “Oh, Cyril, I can’t do that. It’s more trouble than I know how to take. This world’s good enough for a man like me. I’m a man of it, so I might as well stay in it.”

“Forever?”

“Until your Judgment Day, at least.”

Ah yes, Judgment Day. The True Believers loved to talk about Judgment Day. The New Earth Government, they said, was the kingdom of Antichrist. The construction of the Soul Chamber was the abomination of desolation. On Judgment Day, the Soul Chamber would come crashing down and the souls in it or in the confinement chambers or in men’s artificially resurrected bodies would fall in the eternal fire where they belonged.

Some were impatient for Judgment Day, and they didn’t intend to sit still in the meantime.

Read Part 2

New Anthology of Catholic SF

I just discovered this post from Dust of the Time on a new anthology of Catholic science fiction, dealing specifically with how future events and technology and so forth might relate to faith. Check out the interview with the editors.

Movie Review: Equilibrium

Big Brother, most of us have heard of the concept. It's why we have things like Civilian Rights. The very idea of the government super-imposing upon our emotions, feelings, thoughts, and actions is preposterous in this society. It's why the Patriot Act caused a big controversy, it's also why other espionage throughout history have been of issue. Deep down, every human knows that their emotions, feelings, thoughts, and actions, their senses make them human beings. Now what if all that was taken away by a daily dose?

This is exactly what happens to the characters in a movie that came out in 2002 called Equilibrium. The name of the movie states quite accurately what society was, equilibrium, status quo, be just like everyone else.

The movie opens with the idea of a third world war in the twenty first century. The world would not be able to handle a fourth world war thus man had to eradicate the cause of war, man's emotions. The idea being that if man rid the world of anger, hate, jealousy, and all negative emotions the world would no longer have war. However, in the process of eliminating man's negative emotions, man eliminated the positive emotions as well. Turning man into nothing more than a robot.

The interesting thing about Equilibrium is this medication doesn't just target emotions, it targets the senses. Because you see senses induce emotion. The whole goal is to be at equilibrium with the rest of society. Emotions, senses, are treated as a disease within man, taking it to such an extent that the main character, John Preston (played by Christian Bale), no longer feels anything when he shoots a 'sense offender.'

This is the extreme that such a society can take. On the one hand in eliminating emotion man has elminated war, but man still murders other men. Because of a simple fact, if one man begins to feel, others will begine to feel and revolt against the government. It's similar to Plato's idea of a cave. If one man gets outside of the cave he will do whatever he can to go back and tell the others of the free world he has found outside of the cave. It is the same idea in Equilibrium, one man who feels emotion must be eliminated because the rest of the world will know what it's like to be human. John Preston's partner in the beginning of the movie sums up best what has happened to them when he says "Everything that makes us who we are, traded away."

While war is a byproduct of the fallen condition of mankind, the negative side of man's emotions, the solution is not to eliminate man's emotion entirely because to do such would be to lose the thing that makes us humans.

Rotten Tomatoes Golden Tomato Awards

I keep forgetting to tell you guys that Rotten Tomatoes has released its Golden Tomato Awards for 2006. It's a simple concept--the winners are the movies that score highest on the Tomato Meter, which monitors reviews to see if they're generally good or bad.

2006 was a bad year for speculative fiction films. The few times I made the mistake of going to the theater, it was to see movies that represent poor choices on my part--The Covenant, Eragon, Superman Returns, and Arthur and the Invisibles being all the ones I can remember, probably the only ones I saw. Superman Returns was an unfortunate attempt to resurrect a dead franchise rather than create a good new one, Eragon and The Covenant were indescribably bad films based on dubious books, and Arthur and the Invisibles was just a general failure. But from the awful reviews, I see I'm going to have to see Ultraviolet. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.

The Golden Tomato for sf movies went to Children of Men, which I missed, with The Fountain in a distant second. In fact, according to Rotten Tomatoes, only Children of Men, of all the year's sf movies, got a "fresh" rating on the Tomato Meter.

This upcoming summer is an exciting time for sf/fantasy film. Not only is the final Harry Potter novel coming out, but the fifth film will be coming out as well. With it will come the third installment of Spider-Man, a franchise that has been especially good, though number 3 is usually where franchises go downhill. There's also Transformers, which will either be a lovable technophilic action flick or another insulting attempt to make a few million bucks.

And then there's Bridge to Terabithia and Ghost Rider, both of which I expect to be lousy. Both are coming out this weekend, so brace yourselves, because The Sci Fi Catholic, for reasons even he doesn't understand, can't get enough of bad sf/fantasy movies.

Oh, and on another note, I'm pleased to say Epic Movie got a 2% on the Tomato Meter. Maybe that will teach those guys.

First Issue of Latest in Spec Received

We've received the first issue of Latest in Spec, the newsletter of the Christian Science Fiction/Fantasy Blog Tour. You can read it here. Here's the scoop:

Jeff Gerke's website, Where the Map Ends, is the feature blog this month.

The issue is full of reviews, and a Bio of Daniel I. Weaver, an up-and-coming Christian sf author.

Incidentally, I'm going to see if I can get a hold of one of those advance copies of Grace Bridges's Faith Awakened and review it for you folks. No promises. There's only fifty of them and I seem to be having trouble contacting her....

Christian Science Fiction/Fantasy Blog Tour

And it's official. The Sci Fi Catholic is part of the Christian Science Fiction/Fantasy Blog Tour. It's time for Catholics to represent on the Christian sf scene, don't you think? This means every month you'll get links to Blog Tour stuff. It also means you'll get occasional book reviews (from me) on books in the tour. Cool. Click the banner above for more.