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A review by jason_pym
A Case of Conscience by James Blish
3.0
I loved the idea behind this book - what happens when a Christian, a Jesuit no less, finds a new planet of aliens who live without sin - yet have no knowledge of God. How would it affect his faith? How would he deal with them? If he set up a mission, how would he convince the aliens of God's existence?
All the great ideas that this sparks were not really followed up. Instead the priest decides that the planet was created by Satan to shake peoples' faith in God. The Pope on earth tells him to exorcise the whole planet - a fun idea, but not taken anywhere interesting, as at the very end of the book he does exorcise the planet, the planet explodes, thus the planet must have been the work of the devil.
If the paradise planet really was a creation of the devil, then there are a lot more interesting stories could have come out of it - actually, thinking back on it, the demonic alien talk show host was also a nice idea, but you don't realize he really is an agent of the devil till the end of the book. But another kind of novel (the kind I was expecting) would just look at the Jesuit priest as a man, how he deals with his reality, how this discovery affects his faith. There's no need for a planet to explode.
The book was written in 1958, which means that I should cut it a lot more slack than I am - it is an amazing piece of work for its time. And as it is it is still a very readable story. Just it has such a great premise, I wish more was done with it.
All the great ideas that this sparks were not really followed up. Instead the priest decides that the planet was created by Satan to shake peoples' faith in God. The Pope on earth tells him to exorcise the whole planet - a fun idea, but not taken anywhere interesting, as at the very end of the book he does exorcise the planet, the planet explodes, thus the planet must have been the work of the devil.
If the paradise planet really was a creation of the devil, then there are a lot more interesting stories could have come out of it - actually, thinking back on it, the demonic alien talk show host was also a nice idea, but you don't realize he really is an agent of the devil till the end of the book. But another kind of novel (the kind I was expecting) would just look at the Jesuit priest as a man, how he deals with his reality, how this discovery affects his faith. There's no need for a planet to explode.
The book was written in 1958, which means that I should cut it a lot more slack than I am - it is an amazing piece of work for its time. And as it is it is still a very readable story. Just it has such a great premise, I wish more was done with it.