THE WORLD JONES MADE

[defrog]

ITEM: io9 reports on how Intelligent Design is serving as the basis for some new sci-fi novels who treat it as though ID was the truth.

Jay Lake's Escapement is a perfect example, as is Walter Jon Williams' Implied Spaces — both are novels about people in clockwork worlds designed by some kind of higher power associated with spiritual realms. Other recent tales, such as Charles Stross' Saturn's Children and Iain M. Banks' Matter, flirt with the idea of an Intelligent Designer by suggesting that under some circumstances it is the most logical explanation for reality: For instance, if you are a creature who lives in a synthetic world (or body) designed by sophisticated engineers, your existence has been literally created for you rather than randomly evolved.

Artificial worlds are nothing new in SF, of course, and as far as I can tell, Lake is the only author listed above who acknowledges an ID influence. Note also that none of the stories above credit the Judeo-Christian God as being the “designer”, as ID more or less tends to do (and Creationism explicitly does).

Anyway, I like the idea of using ID as a basis for fiction. Why not? ID itself is a work of fiction, so it’s only fitting.

Ironically, I’m not that big a fan of massive world-building SF – or rather, it’s not the world-building itself that appeals to me. But I do like fiction that treats religious beliefs as a playground for exploring ideas – which is probably the result of reading Piers Anthony’s Tarot trilogy and Steven Brust’s To Reign In Hell as an impressionable teenager.

Of course, like any sub-genre, there are good examples (see above, plus Pratchett and Gaiman’s Good Omens, Garth Ennis’ Preacher, Vidal’s Live From Golgotha, even The Last Temptation Of Christ) and bad examples (anything by Tim “Rapture Me” LaHaye).

But I figure if yr going to write stories about gods, there’s no reason to stick to Greek mythology, Lovecraft or the D&D Deities and Demigods handbook. Except for the death threats and fatwas, I mean.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I’m hoping to contribute to the “good examples” list when I finish the Planet Of The Bulls project, which has somehow become populated with certain religious personas, which in turn has required me to outline a background under which they exist. So I’m probably going to offend some sensibilities. But then I was going to do that with all the explicit GLBT sex scenes, so why not?

When someone asks if yr a god, say yes,

This is dF

Comments

[dinopollard.livejournal.com]

It's a video game and not a novel, but Xenogears had TONS of religious overtones.

[jasonfranks.livejournal.com]

Haven't read any of the books cited in the io9 article (although I'm sure it won't be long before I get onto the Iain Banks book, I've been eying it of since it came out).

I have read GOOD OMENS and PREACHER and a good slab of ol' Piers Anthony--and of course there's Roger Zelazny's LORD OF LIGHT (if you haven't read it, you should--Rog was the first, I thinjk, and he's still the best).

I do think that it's a bit short sighted of i09 to say that these books are about Intelligent Design just because that's what's in the news right now--the parable about the brain in a vat (or, prior to that, the 'deceitful demon') has been a subject of philosophical debate for centuries. It's about the first thing you cover in any University-level epistemology class.

As you know, I'm sort of working on the topic myself right now; with a particular emphasis on the origins and purpose of the Devil.

-- JF

[garbagecanmusic.livejournal.com]

Need a beta tester? Again? :)