The Star {short story}

A priest goes on an exploratory mission to find the Star of Bethlehem. Very disturbing if you believe in the Christian mythos as I did when I read it. It still resonates with me, now that I don't

Clarke at his best. A remarkable short story that makes one stop and think about subjects as vast as the universe itself.

...The Star is a story that packs a good punch. It is easy to see why someone who wrote such elegant stories in a time when a lot of science fiction was barely past the pulp stage, would have been considered one of the big writers in the genre. It is worth reading, not just because it aged gracefully, but also because it shows the darker side of the writing of a man known for his optimistic work.

Full Random Comments review

Very powerful, and could be open to several differing opinions about the true meaning. I would say that it was written to be interpreted by everyone individually, as either anti-religious or the opposite, underscoring the power and sovereignty.

It is definitely an engrossing read, not light, very intense and written with great feeling.

Certainly not the typical Christmas read!

A solid scifi short story. I probably shouldn't be surprised at Clarke's knowledge of the Jesuits. At only four pages, it felt well-written (but not quite as moving as it wants to be).

19 December 2022

Before rereading the story, a note about what comes to mind about it now. And the answer is "nothing except the awful discovery."

***
21 December 2022

I mean, the Jesuit astrophysicist was kind of a dick, since he only cared about this civilization because they made graceful stuff. God slaughters innocents all the time in the Old Testament, including his son, in the New, but that's cool because....? He doesn't mention other civilizations
that people interact with, but notes that remains of other extinct races have been discovered, and those don't bother him. Pretty clear who is the asshole in this story.

In looking for a copy to read I came across "Rebbutal" by Betsy Curtis, which is available from Project Gutenburg. It ran show more in the same magazine, sometime in the year after Clarke's. It has a unique point to make, but fair warning, it is even less a story, although presented as a diologue.

To my mind, both of these stories suffer the same deficiency: they both are based on the same premise: that the god of a culture of a certain place and time, one who implies the existence of others in his insistence on primacy, and one who seemingly did not reveal himself to any other culture at the same or earlier time, that god and no other is indeed the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and that humans cannot go on without him despite ample evidence that a great many humans have managed to go on no better or worse without that god.

Review cross-posted with Rebuttal.

Personal copies show less

This is an amazing short story by Arthur C. Clarke, probably one of his best. This audio recording is particularly good as well. Basically, it is a story which brings together religion and science in an interesting way.