Extrememly dull.
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Intellectual meanderings on religion.
I struggled to finish this book.
It focuses on religious doctrine and philosophy and deep intellectual thoughts on both and the nature of God and blasphemy.
These are all subject that I don't care about, the characters are poorly developed in other to allow us to focus on the core thoughts of the book and the same goes for the plot.
There was simply no entertainment value in this book.
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Pretty good
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An interesting novel.
I'm quite puzzled by the remarks of some of the reviewers here - they seem to assume that if one cannot agree with the religion of the priest-scientist, this must make the book somehow less interesting or absorbing. Odd - don't we read novels in part to get out of our usual skins for a bit?
In any case - Blish himself makes the point that he isn't a 'believer' (nor am I BTW)
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Why so highly regarded?
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I read this book because it seems to be highly regarded, appearing in various lists of 'best' SF novels, etc. The basic scenario is four scientists are on a planet 50 light years from Earth and have to report their finding with regard to the suitability of the planet for mankind's uses and to what use it should be put if any. The planet is populated by an intelligent race of large reptiles. One of the four scientists is also a Jesuit priest and his judgement is purely based on his religious beliefs, hence the title. The story is readable, reasonably entertaining, but I couldn't sympathise with the viewpoint of the Jesuit priest at all which made the conclusion and the whole story a bit of a non-event for me. It just wasn't believeable. A good one for fundamentalist christian navel-gazers!
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Profound and unsettling, but brilliantly written.
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As a confirmed atheist who has always had trouble understanding how some people can be religious but still believe in evolution, I approached this novel with trepidation, and was close to giving up on a couple of occasions. However, the brilliance of Blish's earlier entry in the SF Masterworks series - Cities in Flight, persuaded me to continue, and I have to say that I'm very glad I did. Some people would say that religion has no relevance to science, and it is an opinion that the priest Ruiz Sanchez hears a great deal throughout the novel. By giving the character the chance to defend himself throughout the story, I have started to understand one thing about science and religion - that a person's beliefs do not have to be at odds with their skills as a scientist. Ruiz Sanchez is a biologist who believes in God, and as he points out himself in the book, that belief is a constant whether he is praying on earth or praying on a distant planet. He has reconciled the theory of evolution with the theory of Adam and Eve, and sees his faith and his science as being irrevocably intertwined, to the point where he is prepared to face eternal damnation for his decision about Lithia. As for the ending of the book : I won't spoil it for those who haven't read it, but who can really say what is responsible - the science of man or the hand of God ? A perturbing book but fabulously insightful, both for those with faith and those without.
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A staggeringly bad classic.
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Perhaps in 1958, the time of the book's original writing, the juxtaposition of religious concerns with the machinery of hard SF was enough to startle the audience out of noticing the hole-filled plot, cardboard characters, herky-jerky pacing, and lack of anything approaching theological debate, but it certainly does not now. (Incidentally, not since C.S. Lewis' have we seen so EEEVVVYUUULLL a physicist not named 'Edward Teller'.) Of course, if I agreed more with the book's premises, I might not see these flaws in as bold relief as I do...
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