Reprint: Space

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Arthur C Clarke, Cyrano de Bergerac, Douglas Adams, E.E. 'Doc' Smith, Fred Hoyle, H.G. Wells, Hal Clement, Hugo Gernsback, Iain Banks, James Blish, James Tiptree Jr, Johannes Kepler, John W. Campbell, Jules Verne, Larry Niven, Poul Anderson

This is another of my Cognitive Mapping columns. In this instance it first appeared in Vector 190 (November-December 1996).

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Reprint: God

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Andrew M. Greely, Anthony Boucher, Arthur C Clarke, Dan Simmons, David Zindell, Donald Barthelme, Francis Godwin, Garry Kilworth, Harlan Ellison, Harry Harrison, James Blish, James Morrow, m john harrison, Mary Doria Russell, Michael Bishop, Michael Moorcock, Olaf Stapledon, Paul McAuley, Philip K. Dick, Poul Anderson, Robert Silverberg, Thomas More, Tommaso Campanella, Walter M. Miller, William Tenn

And so, as we come to the end of another religious holiday, it is time to look at one of the most persistent themes of science fiction. It is a subject I find myself coming back to on a regular basis. I feel that God (as opposed to religion) has no part to play in science fiction, that the introduction of a figure who can casually change the whole nature of reality is lazy in science fictional terms. This particular iteration of the point came in one of my Cognitive Mapping columns that was first published in Vector 217 (May-June 2001).