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Had a fun time talking sci-fi, religion and the apocalypse with John Scalzi recently. https://religionnews.com/2020/04/13/john-scalzi-on-messiahs-the-apocalypse-coronavirus-and-religion-in-science-fiction/
The conversation was prompted by the Last Emperox, the final book of his series on The Collapsing Empire. Religion plays a big role in the series. https://religionnews.com/2020/04/13/in-the-last-emperox-john-scalzi-delivers-a-satisfying-space-opera-with-a-soul/
We also talked about Dune - which also features a reluctant messiah and a sprawling mercantile space empire. And lots of religion.
The interview made me think of some other religion and sci-books. Decided to make a quick list.
When the Amish Fall -- basically an Amish apocalypse that
both hopeful and sad.
both hopeful and sad.
The Book of Strange New Things - in which missionary pastor goes into space to teach aliens the Bible - which they turn out to be really into. Some bad things happen.
The Sparrow - Jesuit priest goes into space to talk with aliens about God. Bad things happen.
CS Lewis's Space Trilogy. A professor goes into space to weird religion-ish worlds, including one with tall naked people.
His Dark Materials - which might be more fantasy than sci-fi- there are witches and armored polar bears after all. And an evil church. And lots of terrible people.
The Expanse - in which Mormon's built a giant space ship and it's get stolen. Many bad things happen.
The World of Tiers, by Philip José Farmer, in which a middle-aged guy walks through a house his wife wants to buy and discovers he's a god.
And Tor, which publishes sci-fi, has a whole list of religion and sci-fi books - https://www.tor.com/2016/11/01/books-that-explore-religion-in-science-fiction-and-fantasy/
