Thursday 10 September 2015

Yet To Come

See here for the alpha timeline, here for the beta timeline and here for both. I will search the blog again for any other earlier descriptions of these timelines and will also reread the relevant passages in Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time.

Meanwhile, Sean M Brooks has sent me a copy of Guy Consolmagno SJ and Paul Mueller SJ, Would You Baptize An Extraterrestrial? (New York, 2014). This book addresses six cosmological/theological conundra, including the title question. I will read this work for any light that it might throw on the theological issues raised in four works of sf:

The Ransom Trilogy by CS Lewis;
A Case Of Conscience by James Blish;
"The Problem of Pain" by Poul Anderson;
The Game Of Empire by Poul Anderson.

Poul Anderson is to be appreciated both in his own right and in relation to other such sf writers. Both the Ransom Trilogy, Volume III, and Anderson's The Shield Of Time refer to Frederick Barbarossa (Fred Red Beard) (see image).

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Thanks for the nice mention of me! I hope you enjoy WOULD YOU BAPTIZE AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL? and that it gives you food for thought. Altho the authors sometimes mention various SF authors, Poul Anderson was not one of them. Which I regretted!

Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ also wrote a booklet called INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE? (Catholic Truth Society, 2005) discussing the possibility of non human rational beings living on other planets. I'll look for and send you the link to that work.

The late and tragic Walter Miller also wrote SF touching on religious and theological matters, most famously his A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ.

Sean