Sunday, July 29, 2007

All stories with religion as a theme

Among the sf stories I have reviewed, I list the ones that use religion as a theme - whether explicitly or implicitly. Where religion is but a minor subplot, I put an asterisk (*) just before its entry.

While I see substantial interest in such stories, I myself am not very religious & stories with religion as the main them tend to get ranked low by me. So take the list below in (my) order of decreasing quality with a pinch of salt. If you are of the right kind, you might come back more satisfied reading this list bottom-to-top (my worst to best order)!

Here we go.

  1. * Robert Reed's "A Billion Eves" (A): Has a variety of Christianity-derived religious cults where women are inferior to men.
  2. * William Shunn's "Inclination" (A): A Christianity-derived religious cult serves as a story background.
  3. * Arthur Clarke's "2001 A Space Odyssey" (A): Last of the 4 stories will be seen by many as essentially religious (Hinduism), though it is presented as an aliens story.
  4. * Arthur Clarke's "The Star" (B): Some episode from Bible (I think) is a minor theme.
  5. Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" (B): Later half of the story is about two religious cults - a "bad" one & a "good" one.
  6. Michael Flynn's "Eifelheim" (B): Describes life in a German village in fourteenth century. With a very liberal dose of Christianity. Also includes visit of aliens to this village, & conversion of many of them to Christianity.
  7. * Arthur Clarke & Gentry Lee's "Rama Revealed" (B): Religion is a minor theme, introduced towards the end of the book.
  8. Arthur Clarke's "Childhood's End" (C): Mostly Hindu concepts of moksha & brahm, presented as an aliens story. But this book appears to have many admirers (not me, though).
  9. Arthur Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God" (C): A Buddhist sect in Tibet has a strange belief!
  10. Arthur Clarke's "siseneG" (C): Actually a joke about Creation, rather than a story. But I know someone who liked it.
  11. Eliot Fintushel's "How the Little Rabbi Grew" (C): Coming of a messiah of a biblical faith in modern US.
  12. Benjamin Rosenbaum's "The House Beyond Your Sky" (C): A story about the Creation, & who exactly are the gods.

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