- Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Pan Macmillan; First THUS edition (July 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0812580354
- ISBN-13: 978-0812580358
- Product Dimensions: 16.8 x 10.4 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 573,238 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"It's hard to think of a modern science-fiction author with dreams as vast as those of the internationally acclaimed Robert J. Sawyer."--"The Toronto Star"
"Is Sawyer Canada's answer to Michael Crichton? Very possibly yes."--"Montreal Gazette"
"Is Sawyer Canada's answer to Michael Crichton? Very possibly yes."--"Montreal Gazette"
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.
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.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Occupational Health issues for paleontologists??,
By Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Calculating God (Mass Market Paperback)
This is speculative fiction at its very best. Sawyer addresses fundamental questions with a clarity rarely approached by today's fiction writers. Why are there 'forces' in nature which exceed all logic? We've accepted gravity and electromagnetism for centuries. The strong and weak nuclear forces have been deduced. None of these forces truly make sense. They can be measured, but they can't be known. Atomic nuclei should fly apart and the issue of light as wave or particle remains unresolved. So why do these abnormal phenomena exist? Whell, it turns out that's what the Sprite used to make Nature work.Sawyer has updated the old philosophy of Deism. Concerned by their inability to reconcile Biblical dogma with what was being observed in nature, 18th Century thinkers simply pushed the Judeo-Christian god further into the background. The god had wound up the clock of the universe, then sat back observing what transpired. Sawyer has adapted this idea to accommodate the findings of modern scientific revelations. It's an impressive achievement. His research is visible on every page - either he has a stunning library, or owes a bag of money to the local public one. Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Timothy Ferris are all here along with Gregory Paul and Earl Cox [Beyond Humanity - read it]. Even Terry Pratchett puts in an appearance. Sawyer's science is solid - it's clear he's no amateur. He doesn't have to make anything up - the realities of Nature are bizarre enough. He merely stirs in some fresh ideas about possible alien life forms and life styles. And what they might be like if the whole shebang was actually initiated by The Sprite instead of a random singularity. There's some heavy irony and a few anomalies here. Occupational Health and Safety issues for a paleontologist? It used to be limited to rattlesnakes and mosquitoes. Jericho is facing the Great Mystery, but the issue of an afterlife remains unresolved. If The Goggle Box and radio broadcasts don't cover science well enough, why is Hollus a walking Cambridge Catalog of stellar bodies? The Wreeds and Forhilnors managed to escape a nuclear holocaust, but no mention is made of why they came so close. Do those two alien races have nations like on Earth? Jericho never thinks to ask Hollus for a universal translator of his own. He could have become President of the Earth. The Christian vandals at first appear to be a non-sequitur. They don't seem necessary in the story, but Sawyer has a subtle use for them. If humanity will become immortal and The Sprite really exists, paleontology will become irrelevant. It's an interesting prospect. These aren't flaws in the book, merely more thought experiments we should all consider performing in assessing real human values. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Gets your mind racing,
By
This review is from: Calculating God (Mass Market Paperback)
So compelling are the ideas in this book that you find yourself almost wishing it were a true story! As someone else said, speculative science done very very well. Particularly exciting is the way he developed the alienc character, introducing the various gestures it uses that are equivalent to some of ours, and the history of it's planet and race. Wonderfully imaginative stuff.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Humorous provided you don't take it too seriously.,
By
This review is from: Calculating God (Mass Market Paperback)
Robert Sawyer has a subtle humor, and maybe this book that shows this best. I like it very much, because humor and SF are not seen very often together. It starts with an alien landing on Earth who is not interested at all in talking to our "leaders", but just wants to talk to a paleontologist. The really funny thing however is that Sawyer takes arguments that are normally used to proof evolution theory and uses them to proof the existence of god. I guess that a professional geologist or paleontologist can show where his story is wrong, but if you are not one of them, then the story is quite intriguing. I don't think that the book is pro-creationism, as some reviewers do. The paleontologist does start to have doubts, but they are at least in part emotional and caused by his fatal illness.
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