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An alien shuttle craft lands outside the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. A six-legged, two-armed alien emerges and says, in perfect English, "Take me to a paleontologist."
In the distant past, Earth, the alien's home planet, and the home planet of another alien species, all experienced the same five cataclysmic events at the same time (one example: 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, morally and intellectually challenging story of ambitious scope and touching humanity. Calculating God is SF on a grand scale.
Calculating God is a 2001 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel.
- Sales Rank: #165809 in Books
- Brand: Sawyer, Robert J.
- Published on: 2009-03-03
- Released on: 2009-03-03
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.22" h x .93" w x 5.49" l, .66 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 336 pages
Amazon.com Review
Creationists rarely find sympathy in the ranks of science fiction authors--or fans, for that matter. And while Robert J. Sawyer doesn't exactly make peace with evangelicals on the issue, Calculating God has to be one of the more thoughtful and sympathetic SF portrayals you'll find of religion and intelligent design. But that should come as no surprise from this crafty Canadian: in the Nebula Award-winning Terminal Experiment, Sawyer speculated on what would happen if hard evidence were ever found for the human soul; in Calculating God, he turns science on its head again when earth is invaded by theists from outer space.
The book starts out like the setup for some punny science fiction joke: An alien walks into a museum and asks if he can see a paleontologist. But the arachnid ET hasn't come aboard a rowboat with the Pope and Stephen Hawking (although His Holiness does request an audience later). Landing at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the spacefarer (named Hollus) asks to compare notes on mass extinctions with resident dino-scientist Thomas Jericho. A shocked Jericho finds that not only does life exist on other planets, but that every civilization in the galaxy has experienced extinction events at precisely the same time. Armed with that disconcerting information (and a little help from a grand unifying theory), the alien informs Jericho, almost dismissively, that "the primary goal of modern science is to discover why God has behaved as he has and to determine his methods."
Inventive, fast-paced, and alternately funny and touching, Calculating God sneaks in a well-researched survey of evolution science, exobiology, and philosophy amidst the banter between Hollus and Jericho. But the book also proves to be very moving and character-driven SF, as Jericho--in the face of Hollus's convincing arguments--grapples with his own bitter reasons for not believing in God. --Paul Hughes
From Publishers Weekly
Sawyer (Flashforward; Factoring Humanity), a Canadian, is one of contemporary SF's most consistent performers. His new novel concerns the appearance at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto of a spiderlike alien paleontologist named Hollus. The alien has come to Earth to study the five great extinction events that have hit our planet over the eons, the best known being the asteroid collision that wiped out the dinosaurs. When the museum's head paleontologist, Tom Jericho, consults with the alien, he is shocked to discover that Hollus has proof that her own planet and that of another alien race suffered a similar series of five catastrophic events at virtually the same times as Earth did. More surprising still to a 21st-century disciple of Darwin like Jericho, both alien races see this synchronicity, along with other scientific evidence, as proof of the existence of God. Much of the novel is relatively cerebral, as Jericho and Hollus argue over the scientific data they've gathered in support of God's existence, but Sawyer excels at developing both protagonists into full-fledged characters, and he adds tension to his story in several ways: Jericho has terminal cancer, which gives him a personal stake in discovering the truth of the alien's claims, and lurking in the background are a murderous pair of abortion clinic bombers who have decided that the museum's Burgess Shale exhibition is an abomination that must be destroyed. Finally, there's the spectacular, if not entirely prepared for, climax in which God manifests in an unexpected manner. This is unusually thoughtful SF. (June) FYI: Sawyer's The Terminal Experiment won the 1995 Nebula Award for Best Novel.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Diagnosed with lung cancer, paleontologist Thomas Jericho expects to die within the year. What he doesn't expect is the appearance of a spiderlike alien in his museum seeking confirmation from Earth's prehistoric past of the existence of God. The author of Factoring Humanity once again demonstrates his wild talent for innovative, iconoclastic storytelling as he relates a thought-provoking, sobering, yet wryly compassionate tale of one man's discovery of timelessness even as his own time is running out. A good choice for most sf collections.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
59 of 68 people found the following review helpful.
Fascinating speculations, very sympathetic main character
By B Singh
CALCULATING GOD is a terrific book. Sawyer's research is wonderful and far reaching. He has clearly gone beyond just popular science sources. The main character's struggle with cancer is the perfect subplot, for one does wonder how such injustice can exist. All Sawyer's characters come off well, alien or otherwise. I thought at first that the two fundamentalists were going to be given an unfair treatment, but they were seen being very competent at what they set out to do. And, as a Sikh, I must applaud Sawyer's use of a Sikh character in a nonstereotypical role. Very well done! I enjoyed the aliens very much, from the affable Hollus to the almost incomprehensible Wreeds. I do not know the Royal Ontario Museum, where Sawyer sets his book, but I do know the politics of other museums and what he writes has the ring of real truth about it. A fresh and welcome contrast to the ridiculous portrayal of how a museum really works in for instance THE RELIC by Preston Child. CALCULATING GOD should be enjoyed by science fiction readers (I loved it) and by those who don't read sf (my wife loved it as well).
60 of 78 people found the following review helpful.
I was promised an interesting story, I was given a cheap sermon
By Eneasz M. Brodski
This book is basically two characters talking about whether or not God exists for a few hundred pages. Unfortunately it's done extremely poorly.
The smarter character, the alien, basically recites standard apologetics for the existence of a deistic god. If you ever spent a few hours on the internet you've already heard them all. Fine-tuning argument, irreducible complexity, etc. They are presented as tested and correct by the alien's more advanced science. The author is also apparently unaware of the standard atheistic replies, displaying that he never bothered researching past the point where he could comfortably declare his own theological views justified.
The dumber character, the human, is supposed to be an atheist. He is, at best, a straw-man atheist and one is led to believe the author has never met an actual atheist in real life. His part of the conversation is to bring up the weakest possible "objections" to god's existence and then quickly capitulate that the alien is always right.
This is especially pathetic when they discuss morality, as it's glaringly obvious the author has never read a serious book of ethical philosophy in his life. Not one that was published in the last 200 years anyway. Turns out the alien's morality is always correct because they can "feel it" better than humans can.
The worst part of all this is that the atheist isn't just a strawman, he's also a Scully Skeptic. The alien (with his advanced science and measurements) basically demonstrates the existence of a god-like-being in the first 10 pages of the book. Any real atheist at this point would say "Oh, yes, the universe was created by an intelligence. This is amazing! We should try to find out more about this creator being and contact it if possible!" The evidence is absolutely irrefutable and completely solid. And the book could have been amazing from that point on. But the "atheist" has to deny god for no reason, simply so the author can lay out sophomoric apologetics for the next few hundred pages. These apologetics DO NOT MATTER in the novel's world, because you don't need them when you have actual evidence! But this isn't supposed to be an interesting sci-fi novel. This is the authors attempt at evangelizing his reader in OUR world.
Eventually the atheist is convinced by the poor, leaky arguments of modern apologetics - rather than the physical evidence given in the very first chapter - because that's what the author wants people to do in the real world.
I was promised an interesting story, I was given a cheap Sunday sermon that isn't even aimed at the educated portion of the church.
41 of 53 people found the following review helpful.
A fine book by a fine SF writer
By John S. Ryan
Those of us who have been reading science fiction for more than a couple of decades are notorious for complaining that so few modern writers in the genre live up to the old masters. Well, I'm happy to report an exception. Robert J. Sawyer writes excellent stuff, and this book seems to be as good a place as any to start (both reading and reviewing).
I tend to evaluate SF writers/books along two dimensions -- one for the techie stuff, as measured against James P. Hogan (one of my two favorite living SF writers), and one for the humaneness of the characterization and plot, as measured against Spider Robinson (my other favorite). It's hard to find anybody who does well at both; Charles Sheffield, for example, rates pretty high on the first axis but not too high on the second, and Connie Willis is approximately the reverse.
Well, Sawyer measures up well along both dimensions. His plots include both plausible extrapolations from current science and his characters are always interesting and engaging. And he writes very well; it's hard to put one of his books down once you've started it.
This one is no exception, and it's one of his more ambitious efforts to date. The plot: a non-Terran spacecraft sets down outside the Royal Ontario Museum, and an eight-legged alien (named, as it later emerges, Hollus) walks into the museum and asks to see a paleontologist.
The paleontologist on call happens to be Tom Jericho, who happens to have cancer. And when he learns that on Hollus's planet, scientists think it's just _obvious_ that the universe was designed by an intelligent God, he finds that he has to deal with his own reasons for not believing in God. ("If there were a God, cancer wouldn't exist." The Oncological Argument?)
Most of the plot is devoted to scientific and philosophical discussions between Jericho and Hollus. These are well done; Sawyer is right on the money in his characterizations both of the shortcomings of Darwinian theory and of the "fine-tuned" nature of the universe. (Check out Michael Denton's _Evolution: A Theory in Crisis_ and _Nature's Destiny_ for good discussions of all this stuff.)
Sawyer's own speculative resolution of these issues probably won't please too many traditional theists and I think it's questionable on other grounds as well. But hey, that's what speculative fiction is about, and Sawyer's speculations are veeeeeery interesting even when they're not altogether convincing. (I won't spoil things by giving away any details, but I think I can mention that the Oncological Argument does receive an answer in the end. Not a Pollyanna-ish one, either, but still a hopeful one.)
So why did I deduct a star? Partly because Sawyer's two "fundamentalist/evangelical" characters are such stereotypical caricatures, and partly because I think he rushes his ending a little.
But he's a fine writer and very much in the same class as the old masters of the genre. SF has _always_ (a) dealt with tough theological issues and (b) proposed speculative solutions that depart from both the religious and the scientific mainstream. Sawyer continues this tradition and adds lots of new twists of his own.
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