A Case of Conscience

Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez is stationed on the planet Lithia as a biologist. Lithia is inhabited by perfectly rational and good natured reptile like creatures. They are peaceful and unselfish but they have no concept of God or faith and have no literature or art. Even though he admires the Lithians he does not feel comfortable with the situation, something is wrong. It does not make sense to Father Sanchez that creatures that have no concept of God are still perfectly ethical. Could they possibly be the creation of Satan? Then again, does Satan create anything? One day the earth commission discovers something truly disturbing, something cruel and horrific related to Lithian child rearing. The Lithians maybe rational, they may not be "sinners", and they may not be driven by greed or lust of any kind, but they are still not ethical in a human sense. Father Sanchez wants to protect Earth from contact with Lithia (and vice versa) and as the turbulent story unfolds it turns out that his intuition is on target. The focus of the book is the theological and philosophical consequences that arise from the comparison of the two worlds. Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez is a good hearted religious man with a sharp mind. It is through his thoughts, doubts and theological tribulations that we experience this amazing story. It does not matter whether you are a Christian, theist, atheist, or agnostic; your belief system will be challenged and most disturbingly your ethical value system will be challenged. Could it be that the Lithians are rational and lack the emotions that typically lead to "sin", but also lack a conscience (like a sociopath)? Or do they have a different ethical system but without a God? In the end I found the book to be sympathetic towards the Catholic belief system. James Blish wrote many other good novels, for example, Cities in Flight,The Day After Judgement, and Black Easter. Between 1967 and his death in 1975, Blish became the first author to write short story collections based upon the classic TV series Star Trek Star Trek 1 (Vintage Bantam, F3459). A side note: Many years ago I read a good book by James Blish which I have not been able to find since then. The book followed a similar concept to the Planet of the Apes except the Apes were birds. I would be grateful if someone who knows anything about this book is willing to leave a helpful comment. This item has now been identified Midsummer century. Thank you Kasey for your help!

I used to enjoy reading sci-fi but don't read many religious books anymore, but I enjoyed Blish's odd fusion of science fiction and theology. The central question here is an example of the heresy of Manichaeism, a heresy so serious that people were excommunicated at one time for it. That having been said, it's actually a very complex issue, I learned from this book (and other readings in theology), and basically relates to the the sin of attributing creative powers to the devil. In fact, I've read that Jesuits get a whole course in this at the Vatican so they don't accidently lapse into this forbidden and heretical doctrine. The book paints the Catholic church and religion in general in a positive light, which is also interesting in that in so many science fiction novels, science has progressed to the point where most people simply take the scientific view and traditional religious views don't seem to matter much anymore. But the Jesuit father who is also the biologist and medical officer on the expedition is very well developed and a very sympathetic character. The physicist (unfortunately I don't recall his name) is a more hard-boiled and more logical and less emotional person compared to the Father, who truly agonizes over the question about whether the existence of Egtverchi's world means that God and traditional morality have no place in the universe. I don't know of too many other sci-fi novels where religion takes center stage as the main theme, except for perhaps Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, and Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light, coincidently two other Hugo winners from first two decades of the Hugo award. I also don't understand a couple of reader's comments that the writing style was difficult. Come on, were you raised on MTV or something? The book is only a couple hundred pages long and Blish was not the murkiest sci-fi stylist by a long shot. His writing from what I remember was fairly straightfoward in the books and short stories I read even if he does like to speculate on philosophical and moral issues a bit as he does in this novel. Anyway, overall, I found this a very enjoyable read and I think it counts as one of the better overall Hugo novels from the period considering this was the first decade of the awards and several of the other books from this time, such as Clifton and Riley's They Rather Be Right, and Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, don't seem to have stood the test of time in the minds of many fans. (I liked the Bester book myself and thought it quite good but haven't read the other, so I can't comment on it).

This is one of the most thought provoking SF novels I have read (particularly the ending). On occasion, I finish a novel in such a way that makes me close the novel and just think about it for a while. Walter Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz," is the only other novel I have read that is like it in all the science fiction I have read. It seems science fiction authors find it difficult to deal with religion (especially Christianity) in a serious fashion. There is frequent repetition of a pathetic caricature of Christians as irrational fideists whereas the scientist is generally depicted as a noble person who pursues truth throughout the science fiction genre. Blish was himself an agnostic.The novel features humanity's first contact with alien race which humanity calls the "Lithians." The aliens have no native religion to speak of, their society is completely stable and they are moral, to the point of perfection. A committee sent by the United Nations (UN) to evaluate how Earth should view this new world. Technologically and scientifically, the Lithians are ahead of Earth in some areas and vice versa. It is coincidence that humanity has invented nuclear weapons and an efficient way to travel across interstellar distances.The team sent to evaluate Lithia is composed of a chemist, a physicist, another person, and a Jesuit biologist called Ruiz-Sanchez. The team has some friction but it is still required to reach a decision; its recommendation to the UN will determine the state of future relations between Earth and Lithia. Opinion is divided; one wants to open relations and start learning from the Lithian's impressive social strucutre. Another wishes to make Lithia into a planet-wide nuclear weapons factory. Ruiz-Sanchez wants to quarantine it; cut if off from all future contact with man.As the team is about to leave, one of the Lithians gives Ruiz-Sanchez a young Lithian in an artificial womb. The alien has his name, Egtverchi, encoded into his DNA somehow. He survives the journey back to Earth and starts to grow up with no contact with his native world. He gains UN citizenship and becomes something of a celebrity. Then, Egtverchi becomes a media personality of sorts who stirs up social dissent among the insane and other social rejects. One interesting aspect of the society on Earth in 2050 is that almost everybody lives in underground cities. This is set up as a consequence to the nuclear arms race; countries slowly moved their entire populace under ground until a "Shelter economy" is created. This fear of nuclear destruction and speculation about an underground society somewhat dates the novel but it is otherwise difficult to see that the novel was in fact written in 1959. There are some stylistic anachronisms (e.g. Blish uses the term "Earthmen" for the humans who visit Lithia and the term "rocket" is used for space ships) but, like Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" (this novel, which I have also reviewed, aged better) it has aged well.Ruiz-Sanchez'

This is one of my favorite science fiction books. Well written and thought provoking. It deservedly won the Hugo award. Many SF readers are familiar with Blish for his novelizations of the Star Trek TV episodes. But he is a genuine talent in his own right and shouldn't be dismissed. If the book seems to drag through the first fifty pages, stay with it. It is well worth it. What is so fascinating about this book is that Blish's central character is both a biologist and a catholic priest. By learning to see the events in the story through to eyes of a priest and a scientist the reader is brought to a conclusion both holy and horrifying. The climax is either a triumph of God over Satan, or the greatest man-made tragedy the universe has seen. And the ambiguity is not lost on Blish's priest/scientist and hopefully not his reader.

I'm not all that deeply religious and this book made me think about this quite a bit. This book isn't for fans of action oriented SF, if you find yourself reading the Foundation books by Isaac Asimov over and over again this is probably more your speed, like those books (and most books by Asimov) there's little action (most of it being off stage anyway) and the plot mostly centers around people standing arguing over the central point. Here the point is whether we can grant the existence of original sin to a race of creatures that has no concept of faith or belief and who exist basically by reason alone. The priest protagonist has to worry about this and in the beginning you wonder what his problem is but Blish manages to snag you in if you're willing and unravel everything. His tone is measured and calm and he takes his time laying everything out and even if you go in with a certain point of view, he may not change your mind but he'll at least give you cause to stop and think for a moment about your beliefs, whether you're religious or an athiest. Desersedly a winner of the Hugo award a long time ago (this was published in the late fifties I think) these days it's no longer in print for whatever reason which is a shame because in these days of flashy adventure book, we need more novels based on solid ideas that take those ideas to logical ends and make the reader think along the way. If you thought all that James Blish did was those Star Trek books, stop here and see how much better he can be.