''Calculating God'' is a 2000

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel by

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

writer

Robert J. Sawyer Robert James Sawyer (born April 29, 1960) is a Canadian science fiction writer. He has had 24 novels published and his short fiction has appeared in ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'', ''Amazing Stories'', '' On Spec'', ''Nature'', and numerou ...

. It takes place in the present day and describes the arrival on Earth of sentient aliens. The bulk of the novel covers the many discussions and arguments on this topic, as well as about the nature of belief, religion, and science. Several planetary civilizations illustrate the logical conclusion of the

Fermi paradox The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high a priori likelihood of its existence, and by extension of obtaining such evidence. As a 2015 article put it, ...

. ''Calculating God'' received nominations for both the

Hugo Hugo or HUGO may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Hugo'' (film), a 2011 film directed by Martin Scorsese * Hugo Award, a science fiction and fantasy award named after Hugo Gernsback * Hugo (franchise), a children's media franchise based on ...

and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards in 2001.

Plot summary

Thomas Jericho, a

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

working at the

Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

makes the first human-to-alien contact when a "Forhilnor", a

spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

-like alien from the third planet of the

Beta Hydri Beta Hydri (β Hyi, β Hydri) is a star in the southern circumpolar constellation of Hydrus. (Note that Hydrus is not the same as Hydra.) With an apparent visual magnitude of 2.8, this is the brightest star in the constellation. Based u ...

system arrives on

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

to investigate Earth's evolutionary history. The alien, Hollus, has come to Earth to gain access to the museum's large collection of

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

, and to study accumulated human knowledge in order to gather evidence of the existence of

God In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...

. It appears that Earth and Hollus' home planet, and the home planet of another alien species traveling with Hollus, all experienced the same five cataclysmic events at roughly the same time. Hollus believes that the universe was created by a god, to provide a place where life could develop and evolve. Thomas Jericho is an

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

who provides a balance to the philosophical discussion regarding the existence of gods. At the end, the star

Betelgeuse Betelgeuse is a red supergiant of spectral type M1-2 and one of the largest stars visible to the naked eye. It is usually the tenth-brightest star in the night sky and, after Rigel, the second-brightest in the constellation of Orion ...

goes

supernova A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...

, threatening all life within hundreds of

light-years A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...

with

radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visi ...

. One of several dead civilizations discovered by the explorers may have deliberately induced the

in order to sterilize the stellar neighborhood. This was presumably done in order to protect the

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

machinery which now housed all of their planet's personalities. According to a theory of Thomas's, several worlds exist where the inhabitants uploaded themselves into machines instead of exploring the nature of the universe and gods. Although the supernova explosion occurred over 400 years before the events of the novel, the radiation is first reaching

at the present time due to its distance from Earth. However, the alien ship's advanced

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observe ...

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as a p ...

then sees a large black entity emerge from space itself and cover the exploding star. This is final proof that a controlling intelligence is guiding and preserving some life-forms in the universe. In the final chapter, the scientist, who is dying of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

, travels to the entity on the alien ship, where a

fusion Fusion, or synthesis, is the process of combining two or more distinct entities into a new whole. Fusion may also refer to: Science and technology Physics *Nuclear fusion, multiple atomic nuclei combining to form one or more different atomic nucl ...

of genetic materials from human and alien sources produces a new life form that the aliens conjecture will create the next cycles of the universe.

Notes

References

*Cassada, Jackie. "Calculating God (Book review)." Library Journal 125.7 (15 Apr. 2000): 126. *Flynn, Tom. "SCIENCE FICTION GOES ANTHROPIC." Free Inquiry 22.1 (Winter2001/2002 2001): 62. *"Forecasts: Fiction." Publishers Weekly 247.12 (20 Mar. 2000): 75. *Johnson, Roberta. "Adult Books: FICTION." Booklist 96.16 (15 Apr. 2000): 1534. *Seidman, Barry F. "Using Science Fiction to Promote Creationism." Skeptical Inquirer 26.2 (Mar. 2002): 53–54. * Elmore, Jonathan
Fiction and the Sixth Mass Extinction: Narrative in an Era of Loss
Chapter 8. (Google Books).

External links

* {{isfdb title, id=21443, title=Calculating God
Calculating God on sfwriter.com

Calculating God
at Worlds Without End 2000 science fiction novels Fiction set around Beta Hydri Fiction set around Betelgeuse Novels by Robert J. Sawyer Novels set in Toronto Religion in science fiction Fiction about supernovae Tor Books books

Plot summary

Notes

References

See also

External links