James Blish - Case of Conscience, A - 6

[clong]

Case of Conscience, A (After Such Knowledge - 1)

I found things to like about this celebrated and ambitious books, especially in its first half. It gives us characters, aliens, planetary ecology, and future Earth, which are all intriguing and reasonably plausible. It gives us an eerie prediction of something horribly similar to reality television. It gives us serious questions about science and religion, clearly written in a cold war setting in which scientists dig deep into things they don’t understand and said things ultimately go boom in unanticipated and hazardous ways.

Having said all that, the second half of the book thoroughly failed to deliver on the promise of the beginning. The inherently interesting above-mentioned things spiral out of control in generally superficial ways, and in the end we’re left with something about as profound as a reasonably decent Star Trek episode. Engtverchi’s saga initially offered much promise but quickly degenerated into silliness. Similarly, I found Father Ruiz-Sanchez’ struggles to reconcile his faith with (alien) reality compelling, but as this storyline moved towards its final resolution it became increasingly juvenile. The climactic lunar scene felt like something out of a comic book.

To the extent this book has a message it has to be something like “75% of even the best of humanity is screwed up in irredeemable ways” (of the original quartet of explorers only Michelis remains sympathetic and admirable). And perhaps that people who put faith ahead of common sense should be excluded from space exploration teams.

All in all, the first half of this book is clearly a huge step forward from the last thing I read by Blish (the “Cities in Flight” tetrology). But while I admired the questions asked by this book, I found the answers awfully disappointing.

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[Omphalos]

I agree with a lot of what you said here. And while I absolutely hated the second part of this book, I don't think that I could love the first part any more. The dilemma was beautifully set up and stated, and the ideas Blish had were amazing. Then it all fell to absolute sh*t in the second part. In particular I really liked Blish's concept of the alien's reproduction (at least, I don't think that it was hackish at the time he wrote it), the tree and the basis for their technology.

Here is a review I wrote of this book a long time ago:

http://www.omphalosbookreviews.com/inde ... s/info/169

[clong]

Nice review, Omphalos. Your thoughts are indeed largely similar to mine (and better articulated ).

As I was reading the first half of this book I couldn't help but think of it as the inspiration for Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow.

[Omphalos]

As I was reading the first half of this book I couldn't help but think of it as the inspiration for Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow.

My thoughts exactly. Ive been meaning to reread her first two books and point that out in a review. I still think that the "monk on an alien planet" theme is still waiting for it's masterpiece, although I am a fan of The Sparrow.