Project Pope

Simak is many things, but never typical science fiction. Project Pope is one of his most challenging novels, and also one of the ones that hold up best over time. A good place to begin with Simak and an introduction to his worlds of speculation, religious questions, and the desire for contact. One of the things that I like best is that Simak understands that in some cases it may be easier to make contact with aliens than to make contact with other humans.

What is a robot to do when the world's largest Christian religion refuses to recognize it as a child of God. Start its own religion, of course. And this is what project Pope is all about, robots' search for God. In the end, they succeed beyond their wildest dreams, proving that God does not discriminate, but makes Himself known to all who seek Him...even robots!A very inspirational novel!

In this book, Simak explores ideas about what it means to be human, mankind's search for knowledge, the need for spiritual fulfillment, and what ultimately brings us happiness. Heavy stuff for a science fiction novel, and this is a great book to handle it.This was the first of Simak's books I read, and it inspired me to immediately look for more. I think it's a real page-turner for the intellectual set and if you're into books where there isn't a lot of action but there's plenty to think about, you'll love this one. My one caveat is that the ending is a bit weak - I was left with the feeling that while the most vital elements of the plot had been resolved, the story could easily have gone on for another thousand pages or so. Perhaps Simak didn't do a good job of bringing conclusiveness to the end of the book, or perhaps he just created such an interesting story that I was left craving more, it's hard to say.

Very interesting and very clever. Interesting, because Simak presents new insights in the longstanding debate between theology and science, faith and knowledge. Clever, because Simak's characters and their worlds are breathtakingly imaginative. He peoples his planet, the End of Nothing, with a variety of fascinating creatures, from robot cardinals to a computer pope to a sentient cloud of molecules. All have souls and all seek the truth. In many ways, this novel reminds me of C.S. Lewis -- had Lewis not been so sure of himself and his theology.

Simak gives us a different type of robot than Asimov's. Not better, just different and refreshing. His robot's take up religion when mankind deserts it and show us what really makes someone/something human or not. The climax is much better than I expected leading up to it. Very exciting build up.