Calculating God

I didn’t hate this. It ends pretty interestingly, but (to my tastes) basically where I would have started the actual story. I was pitched this book by another guy standing in line while waiting to buy some book at Minicon. I was essentially just told how the story begins (which is essentially the starting premise), and it’s a really good hook! I was intrigued, and only after dumping my pile of books in the trunk and looking at the schedule while walking back to the con that I realized the author was there, and doing a reading basically right at that moment.

I only rated this 3 out of 5 stars for a few reasons. I felt like the only really flushed out character was the main one. The wife in particular is basically just a sketch, and a weak stereotype at that. (This book wouldn’t pass the Bechdel test except that the wife has one scene with an alien we don’t actually find out is female until near the end of the book.) And the worst thing IMO is that a lot of pages in the middle of the book are devoted to the main character “coming around to” intelligent design. I admit I have no idea whether the author’s intent was to present an actual argument or not (this is fiction, after all), but it definitely came off that way in a few places, and that felt out of place given the context. I mean, I’m fine with the premise that the main character is convinced by a race of aliens that all believe it — that’s interesting! But we didn’t need page after page of the main character pointing out things we don’t understand as if that makes any sort of convincing argument to a scientist.

When the aliens arrive on earth, their first action is to march into one of the world's leading museums and demand "take me to your paleontologist!" They're not interested in politics, not interested in conquering the world or curing human disease, they just want to study our fossil record. And so the alien Hollus meets Tom Jericho, director of paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, and confirmed atheist. And Tom is rather surprised and disturbed to discover that the aliens are so interested in our fossil record because they believe they've found evidence of god.

The story continues on several levels - Tom's personal life and struggles, the debate between Hollus and Tom over whether the evidence the aliens have put forth does in fact constitute proof of an intelligent force influencing the universe, and also the reaction of more fundamentalist political and religious groups to the alien's arrival (and announcement of their belief in a god).

I haven't read up on Sawyer's background but the book reads like an atheist and scientist author who has decided to play devil's advocate and turn the stereotypical narrative upside down and see what happens. He constructs a quite realistic scenario in which an all-powerful creator's influence CAN be scientifically justified, and then takes it to a far extreme to see what happens. The book is quite cerebral in parts, as it does get fairly heavily into the discussion of science, philosophy, and religion, but I found it a very interesting and thought-provoking thought experiment, as well as ultimately a touching story. If you're not interested in a little mental exercise and just want a story you can take at face value though, this is probably not the book for you.