Calculating God

Rating:
Summary: deus ex machina to the extreme
Review: Sawyer's Calculating God has to be one of the more interesting books on the science fiction shelves this season. He asks a simple question: Is there a god (God?) and then sets out to entertain the reader with a plot that, fictionally, answers the question in a resounding manner. Add to that a protagonist facing his own mortality, an alien who looks like a big spider, and a star in the 'hood going nova, and you have a rousing tale of adventure and wonder. At another level, the book askes a more basic question: What is science fiction? I've been asking my e-mail friends to read this novel so we can discuss some of the more weighty issues contained within this interesting story. Then again, maybe it's just nice to find a novel which leads to examining issues with one's friends instead of reading it, tossing it aside, and looking for the next piece of mind candy.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and a interesting twist on "creationism"
Review: As a Canadian, it's to my shame that this is the first Robert Sawyer book I have read. It certainly won't be the last, however. This is the story about aliens (from 2 different planets!) arriving on Earth and splitting up to explore various aspects of the planet. One goes to Borneo to live with gorillas, another spends his time in a mental hospital in West Virginia, and the one that the book focusses on is a paleontologist that ends up in Toronto at the Royal Ontario Museum. It turns out that both alien races believe in an intellegent designer of the universe, more conveniently called "God" throughout the book.

The book is not really a morality play, however. The alien view of God is that He/She/It is not concerned with individuals, but does actively participate in the life of the galaxy (and universe?). For example, extinction events on all three planets where intellegent life arose occurred at the same time, but from unrelated causes (e.g. our extinction event 65 million years ago was from an asteroid and so should have no correlation with extinction events elsewhere), and DNA uses the same 4 building block across the three species. So, the alien Hollus basically paraphrases Einstein: "I want to know the mind of God; all the rest is just details."

One of the great things about the book is that it's not a goal-driven story - the characters are just scientists trying to learn from each other. The narrative never loses steam, however, and you're drawn into the story and the characters, especially Hollus and the family of the ROM's paleonotologist, the narrator of the story. His struggle with lung cancer is a humanising subplot, giving him (an ardent atheist) a personal stake in the debates on the nature or existence of God.

Someone has commented that Sawyer is a combination of Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Crichton, which is a good description of the style of this book. Add in the distinctly Canadian atmosphere and a dose of humour, and you have a very enjoyable (and sometimes thought-provoking) science fiction novel.

Rating:
Summary: I love the fact that it was written in the 1st person
Review: It was nice to read something coming from a Canadian perspective and especially coming from a 1st person's perspective. I felt as if the author was really opening up to me as things were layed out as if he put on a defense in front of others yet let his true feelings about his philosophy on God out when he thought to himself. I guess the best part of this book was when it was finally figured out what most species did once they reached a certain point in technological advancements. I think the idea was sort of like the Matrix which is something that really interests me. I also liked how the author went on contemplating if a "virtual" life would be just as desirable as a "real" life. It really got me to appreciate my physical existence and the fact that I can actually manipulate my physical surroundings because its not an illusion.. well.. at least I think it isn't?? I loved this book because it made me put it down and stop reading to just think every now and then.

Rating:
Summary: excellent blend of current science, speculation and story
Review: i loved this book. the story had a good pace but not at the expense of the details necessary for good mental pictures. the characters were well developed with believable alien cultures, mannerisms and philosophies. the underlying questions about god and technology were not new, but were posed in a thought-provoking manner. the ending was interesting but it seemed forced. i have enjoyed several of sawyer's books in the past year. factoring humanity was interesting, but a bit more 'out there' than i like. the terminal experiment was similar to calculating god in its fusion of science, philosophy, thoughtful speculation and story-telling. i am looking forward to more stories by robert sawyer.

Rating:
Summary: LOved it!
Review: You can't go wrong reading Robert J.Sawyer. Between Calculating God and The Terminal experiment, I can't decide which I liked better. I've never read any other author of fiction who deals with these kind of subjects. I'd love to read more fiction like this.
The theology/scientific bend is fascinating.

Rating:
Summary: I really, really wanted to like this book
Review: As I read Calculating God I was caught by what I thought was a gradual and slow build up to something grand and thought provoking. Unfortunately, the end of the book left a sour taste in my mouth. The ending fizzled without resolving the question that the author insisted on restating on every page, "is there a god." Although the book was well written (even though the last two chapters look like they were missed by the editor) once I finished I found myself not pondering the existance of a God, but why it took so many pages to say nothing.

I have to say that the author has an enjoyable writing style and a good sense of humor...but the ending knocked all the stars out of my review.

Rating:
Summary: Good, fast-paced, philosophical hard SF
Review: This book has truly an enormous goal: aliens visit Earth and want to prove God's existence. But don't worry, this is none of your typical evangelical rants so popular among the gullible.
Although I browsed Sawyer's very informative website, I couldn't really determine if he is a man of faith or a good old scientific agnostic, although I guess he is one of the latter. The story starts out very straight forward: an alien shuttle lands in front of the Royal Ontario Museum and wants to speak to a paleontologist: Tom Jericho, who suffers from a lethal cancer. Jericho and Hollum, the alien, will have many discussions, and most of them are about the existence of God and about moral issues.
So it's basically philosophical SF, clad in a hard-SF shell to make it appealing to the sign of the times. There is even a hint of (probably not intended) humor in the guise of the two creationist terrorists with great Southern accents. Some people seemed miffed by this stereotyping, but having talked to creationists myself, I know they fit the stereotype, although most are NOT terrorists.
Does Sawyer succeed? To his credit, mostly yes! 'Calculating God' is a very fast and entertaining read, although there might be too many hints to popular culture like South Park or New Country acts like Faith Hill and Shania Twain (I hoped Sawyer had better taste in music), which will seem outdated in at least a decade from now.
Only the ending of the book is a bit ambiguous. Sawyer trying to fit into the footsteps of Arthur C. Clarke, obviously, but maybe just too reminiscent of 2001? But then what other end could he have conceived of?
Oh, and by the way, I ended up being confirmed in my agnostic beliefs: sure there might be an intelligent designer, but why call her or him or it God?

Rating:
Summary: thought-provoking, but ultimately, too implausible
Review: Aliens land in front of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and say, "Take me to a paleontologist." It turns out that mass extictions on three different planets with intelligent life (including Earth) occurred at exactly the same time. The ET's think this proves that an intelligent being created the universe and continues to tinker with it. Thought-provoking, along the lines of Arthur C. Clarke, if ultimately implausible.

Rating:
Summary: Calculating God - a good read
Review: Robert Sawyer is a wonderful writer. He was able to offer the reader a coherent dialogue regarding the existance of God being a scientific fact through interaction between human and alien characters. All of his characters were built with humor, depth and a feeling of reality. The only part I didn't like was a distracting sub-plot regarding militant creationists. But, the merits of the rest of the book far overpowered this problem. The argument for God was fresh because it did not involve religion. It was a pure question of whether a God existed whose purpose seemed to be keeping order in the universe. The question of morality as a path to immortality was brought up but scientifically disregarded. In summary, I like this book very much and will order another by Robert Sawyer.

Rating:
Summary: big let-down
Review: The concept for this book is fantastic - a wonderful idea, with several neat twists. However, I found the actual plot enormously disappointing. Without giving too much away, suffice to say that the concept largely recedes as the author spends most of the book using the science-fiction "hook" as a veneer for discussing his thoughts on Issues Of the Day ("what would the inhabitants of Omicron Beta III think about abortion?"). Furthermore the book requires that you feel that Canadians are so utterly phlegmatic that the daily presence of an Alien in their midst, after a few days, is treated largely with a shrug - no extra security for the alien, no extra recording/monitoring/vetting of the conversations with the alien, etc.

I don't want to sound like too much of a fussbudget, but those two were just too much for me to swallow - more emphasis on the essential concept and a lot less on the gassing about public policy would have made this a great book.