Discussing religion and spirituality in SF/F literature is complicated by three main facts. The first being that there’s just so much interesting stuff going on in SF/F literature about spiritual matters, it’s impossible to fit it all into one article (you’ve been warned; this is a topic I will be revisiting). Next, matters of religion are incredibly complicated to discuss precisely – that is both the nature of faith and the inherent semantic difficulty in differentiating between a “real” religion and a “made up” one in a context where it is easily argued that there is no difference. Finally, SF/F literature also has to contend with the external lens of religion, usually typified by some media focus on someone’s version of “X book is inappropriate for Y reasons because my religion tells me so.”
It would, of course, be silly to engage in any discussion of religion in SF/F literature without starting with some obvious choices: C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, which are, despite being rather heavy handed on the Christian allegory front, still a great read; Frank Herbert’s admittedly difficult to get into Dune (once you get past page 150, it’s smooth sailing, but the beginning is clunky), which is both deeply inventive in some of its religious elements and significantly influenced by Islam and Arab history in others; Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon which can probably be single-handedly blamed for 80% of new interest in pagan and earth-based religions the year it came out; and Margaret Atwood’s unsettling and emblematic of a whole sub-genre of religiously interested feminist SF/F literature, The Handmaid’s Tale.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the huge body of SF/F literature about fallen angels. This was something I had no idea about until recently (it’s one of my creative partner’s fascinations), but there is a truly endless supply of amazing books in this category including Philip Pullman’s problematic His Dark Materials trilogy (back to that in a moment); Elizabeth Knox’s hypnotic and brutal The Vintner’s Luck, which features some of the most evocative, specific, and lush writing I’ve ever encountered; and Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series, which has such a solidly built mythology that I once blurted out “Elua keep you,” to a shopkeeper who had found my lost cell phone when I was in the middle of one the novels – it’s a measure of a well-realized literary religion if it rolls off the tongue conveniently for curses and blessings. The fallen angels don’t stop there, however. There’s also Glen Duncan’s I, Lucifer as well as the Lucifer graphic novels.
All of which brings us to something I can’t quite figure out the origins of in SF/F literature, but that I’m utterly fascinated with. That is, what’s with the gnosticism? (Surely, I’m not the only person to blurt out in the middle of the second Matrix film, “Hey, Neo’s the gnostic Lucifer!”) Do gnostic world views show up so prevalently in SF/F literature because it’s an easy way to attempt unity between fantastical elements snf spirituality while grounding them in some actual research and familiar sounding concepts? Or are the gnostic elements an inadvertent outgrowth of challenging our dominant Judeo-Christian paradigms while also finding them useful? I suspect that when the first installment of the His Dark Materials film trilogy comes out this winter, if Pullman’s very confrontational views on religion haven’t been removed from it, this will become a much more lively discussion in the most general of media.
For now though, when it comes to objections to SF/F literature on religious grounds we’re largely left with Georgia mom Laura Mallory’s ongoing efforts to get the Harry Potter books banned from schools for promoting witchcraft and Satanism. If you’ve read the books, you know that all the nasty potions ingredients and spells formed from bastardized Latin aside, the world J. K. Rowling has created is so Church of England it hurts. In fact some people would argue that the Harry Potter books are one of the strongest SF/F showcases of Christian values. In an upcoming piece, I’ll be interviewing one of my favorite people in the Harry Potter fandom, a Orthodox Christian woman who believes Snape isn’t evil and that his journey has something to say to us all about redemption and forgiveness. She’s smart, she’s funny and if you’re like me, you’ll be impressed and just a little bit surprised by how much sense she makes. And yes, we’ll be talking about things other than Harry Potter.
Next week though, I’ll be writing about the end of the world. In part because books with post-apocalyptic settings contain some of the coolest, weirdest religious ideas I’ve ever seen (The Church of Jesus Christ Cadillac anyone? How about a suicide cult built around essentially training for marathons? Or a world where women with normal fertility are thought to be contaminated with evil?), and also because post-apocalyptic settings allow authors to so effectively connect the fantastical to the here and now politically, emotionally and logistically. Finally, I grew up in the 80s, which means I’ve read a seemingly endless number of YA novels about surviving nuclear war.
In the meantime, it’s your turn to add to my reading list. Tell me what moments of religion in SF/F books have wowed you. Or offended you. Or puzzled you. What’s your favorite fallen angel book? And what oaths and imprecations have you borrowed from fiction? And where do you stand on matters of “real” and “fictional” religion?
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Racheline is a performer, writer and long-time fan of sci-fi and fantasy literature, who believes truths lurk in all art, no matter how fantastical.
You can find all of Racheline's Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fan articles at www.gather.com/scififan
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Comments: 39
I haven't read that and should. I will add it to my list. Right now I am finishing A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay and after that it's probably on to The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.
Both of those are favourites of mine. They'll be in there.
You should cross-post it into Christian Fiction and Discussion.
Also, for more fiction on fallen angels: Robert Masello's Vigil features a fallen angel antagonist. He also shows up briefly in the sequel "Bestiary".
I may come back and comment on the gnosticism you mentioned, but I have to go grocery shopping now.
On another note, one of my favorite accounts of Christianity, though it's never called as such, is in Gillian Bradshaw's Arthurian trilogy. All her characters, save the occasional priest, are more or less pagan, but the theme of fighting "for the Light" and "against the Darkness" runs through all the books. It's beautifully done because Bradshaw has such a subtle touch: no hammering with a cross in her books.
My own interesting note on 'angels' of sorts is the series by Brian Stableford: The Werewolves of London, the Angel of Pain and the Carnival of Destruction - his empire of fear series.
The Mists of Avallon I think fed into the pagan & neo-pagan elements more than created any...they were already brewing along before Bradley's novel. But it was a big hit in the community as far as I could tell.
Yes - you are dead on with the Gnostic mythic elements and the Matrix! The Matrix is a modern telling of the gnostic myth.
You want Gnosticism, it's not strictly speaking SF but Tom Robbins ANOTHER ROADSIDE ATTRACTION, will give you a interesting view on religion and of course the original PKD DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP will have you grasping the handles joyfully.
And I think I can speak for an entire generation or two that FUN aside say, 'Harry Potter'??? Oh BOTHER..' it's crap but so is 85% of everything an actual writer once said.
I cannot recall the title nor author accurately, but I thought it was Simak that penned a novel about robots that worshiped God. A theme currently used in the SciFi channel's Battle Star Galactica (the Cylons being a self appointed scourge of God to punish humans; Genghis Kahn, anyone?).
Orson Scott Card did a great job of blending Christianity with magic, ESP and shamanism in his Alvin Maker series.
Assimov showed the power of religion to manipulate the masses in his Foundation series.
The City of Angels movie with Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan was based on a scifi novel.
Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, as J. Golden mentioned, is a great messiah story. I grok it.
And one of my all time favorite authors, Andre Norton, wrote tons of YA books along the metaphysical pagan lines.
Of course all this is just the tip of the iceberg. I am so glad someone is taking this theme on.
Thanks, Racheline!
A very nice article, particularly the question you raise about gnosticism.
I would comment further, but since you are writing next week about the end of the world, I need to get my affairs in order.
Also, R. Scott Bakker's Warrior Prophet Trilogy (The Darkness that Comes Before, the Warrior Prophet and The Thousandfold Thought) wraps a fairly straightforward religeous crusade with non-human generated Apocolypses, sorcery and other aspects.
Both series are great reads, although The Thousand Fold Thought does expect the reader to delve into it's own history.
Donna, King doesn't necessarily think of himself as a horror writer--more as just a writer! And with a strong belief in "the white"--I was late coming to him and still can't read everything he writes, but there is a candleflame of faith that burns very strongly there, I find.
I agree with two commentators who suggested Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein's classic which deals very directly with messianic desires in the populace.
Larry Niven and Gerry Pournelle's novel Fallen Angles deals not with your fallen angels as discussed in the article, but with two astronauts fallen from orbit into an America that is icebound with the effects of an ice-age (as a result of over reaction to global warming) and under control of the religious kooks who have cancelled the space program and are busy undoing most of the modern science and technology that our society is based on. It deals very well with the consequences of relgious mania in society.
I also agree with two commentator's above who mentioned Stephen King's Dark Tower series, which is fabulous and deals with a number of spiritual and philosophical questions. For example: should the individual be sacrificed in order to pursue the greater good of all creation? This is dramatically dealt with by the main character allowing a child whom he sees as a son to die in order to pursue his mission to save the universe. The action continues to echo throughout the rest of the story, several books after the event.
Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever does not deal with religious issues, but I have used the oath "melenkurion abatha" in my real life on more than one occasion.
Clifford Simak's Way Station is a good book along this line, and so is his Time and Again. (Of course, Simak is just great, period.)
There are so many short stories that touch on this as well: Heinlein's Nine Billion Names of God; Zelazny's story of the priest on an interstellar mission who realizes that the wonderful civilization that died thousands of years in the supernova that became the Star of Bethlehem was too great a sacrifice for a loving God to make (can't remember the title); and of course Isaac Asimov's The Last Question.
The Nine Billion Names of God is a famous 1953 short story by Arthur C. Clarke.
Wonderful line of thought. Thank you.
Also, Kage Baker's "The Company" series, while not directly religious, does have this unseen hand manipulating people in rather god-like ways at times.