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Calculating God
by: Robert J. Sawyer
List Price: $6.99
as of 09/03/2010 02:31 EDT
Price: $4.99
You Save: $2.00 (29%)as of 09/03/2010 02:31 EDT
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780812580358
Edition: 1st
ISBN: 0812580354
Label: Tor Science Fiction
Manufacturer: Tor Science Fiction
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: July 15, 2001
Publisher: Tor Science Fiction
Studio: Tor Science Fiction
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
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.
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
Average Rating: 
Rating:
- I was promised an interesting story, I was given a cheap sermonThis 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 ... Read More
Rating:
- DeceptiveIf ever there was a book that made me want to ask for my money back, this was it.
The story is just an excuse to promote Intelligent Design. It will throw at you the standard, pre-packaged arguments, and hope you are not knowledgeable or sophisticated enough to see that either they have already been debunked or they are plain wrong.
If you want an original, entertaining sci-fi story, this is not it, and if you want to educate yourself on the I.D. vs evolution controversy, pick up something ... Read More
Rating:
- One Dimensional and Cliched Characters Flaw an Intriguing ConceptThere is a great amount of potential for the premise behind Calculating God. It creates an opportunity to discuss the nature of God in a scientific setting and explore and contrast the views of how scientists envision a creator and what that means. How does that relate, if at all to a spiritual view of God, or do we in fact live in a Godless universe as professed by Richard Dawkins. Unfortunately, the story is mainly butchered by cliches, an inability to develop characters or logical situations, and ... Read More
Rating:
- A captivating readWhile not necessarily agreeing with every argument presented, if find the book still to be to my liking with its not-too-predictable plot twists, characters I can relate to and the overall captivating flow of the narrative. If I had to compare it to something, I'd say the book has best elements from Samit Basu's Game World trilogy (the unpredictable twists, although not quite THAT much as Samit has managed to come up with) and the popular science material (with some fiction added, of course) of ... well, ... Read More
Rating:
- Take A Mind TripBEFORE reading this novel the only thing I knew about Robert Sawyer was that one of his books was the basis for ABC's "Fast Forward," which I love. AFTER reading "Calculating God," I can now clearly attest that I'm going to invest in other novels of his as soon as I can.
I picked it up on a whim, as I enjoyed the premise: "An alien walks into a museum..." I tend to enjoy stories that poke at mankind's seminal questions and, as the title seemed to pose a similar conundrum, I took a chance ... Read More
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