Gardner Dozois, editor, Galileo's Children: Tales of Science vs. Superstition
(Prometheus Books, 2005)
I'm a big fan of the short story. I buy a lot of anthologies -- and the odd collection, if I feel confident the writer in question can pull it off (with anthologies, you are effectively hedging your bets; with collections, you have one proverbial egg-basket) -- and I enjoy the ability to pick it up, read one or two complete stories, and then put it back down and return to it later. Quick and satisfying. It's good if I have small pockets of time to read, here and there, and I don't want to constantly feel interrupted in my reading when other things demand my attention.
It's not very often that an anthology really has a point, though. I mean, sure, there are fantasy anthologies for lovers of dragonlore, or alternate history sci-fi, or any number of other genre-based classifications, but not usually a strong over-arching theme, and rarely a serious political message. Not so with Galileo's Children.
Veteran editor Gardner Dozois explains in his preface that science fiction has long been a political battleground, and I'm inclined to agree. The scientific community is largely liberal, and the science fiction community largely follows suit. "Escapist literature" or no, sci-fi is very rarely politically neutral. The extrapolation of current trends to their potential ends is often used to illustrate a warning look at things to come. How many oppressive futures have been described for us, warning against the dangers of too much government and not enough individual rights; ruined worlds as a result of our not being able to get over our cultural and ideological differences and instead letting loose our nuclear arsenals; dirty, dystopian futures, the result of our rampant consumerism and neglect of environmental conservation?
In this particular anthology, however, the target is ignorance and superstition and not religion, Dozois points out. The fear of the unknown, of change, which has done so much to hold back, and even persecute the great thinkers of history. Like the anthology's namesake, Galileo: a man silenced and put under house arrest 'til his death, as penalty for his sinful ideas of heliocentricity.
Galileo's Children consists of 13 tales. The first two tales of woe ("The Stars Below" and "The Will of God") are those of unfortunate martyrs: brilliant, fictional scientists of the Middle Ages (the historical Middle Ages, not vaguely medieval fantasy settings) being squashed by the ignorant, frightful masses, who are in turn controlled by the Church.
The third ("The Way of Cross and Dragon") is a futuristic tale, wherein the Catholic church is more powerful than ever, even with multiple Popes, of varying species, on multiple planets. It's an even more radically splintered version of Christianity than we have today, and yet, each faction believes itself the only legitimate one.
"The Pope of the Chimps" is one of my favourites in this book. I like Robert Silverberg, and this was a much less dreary, yet still provocative, look at religious fervour. In it, a group of scientists who have been working with generations of increasingly intelligent chimps in a closed-off compound face the difficult question of how to tell their furry friends (through sign language) that one amongst them is dying from a fatal disease. The chimps see the scientists as gods, and their perceptions change when life and death, and indeed, the idea of an afterlife, are explained to them.
"The World Is a Sphere" is the first dystopian tale. It is fairly typical: an unfamiliar, primitive, brutal world, ruled by an iron-fisted dictator -- except it turns out this world is our future, and not our past. This doubles as a "warning" story as well as a "battle against ignorance" story. In their mythology, the first age of the world is the age of the Americans -- the Sorcerers. And sometime during this technological age, our age, everything got blown up, and knowledge was lost (as it always is). Now, in this future world, there are all sorts of religious beliefs about the way things are, and were, and the ruler of this particular part of the world enforces those dogmas and traditions --wWhich also includes the certainty that the world is largely flat -- on pain of death.
"Written In Blood" is a pretty neat, near-future tale, from a pretty neat newcomer, Chris Lawson. In it, the protagonist describes her childhood journey with her devoutly Muslim (but well-educated and faithfully scientific) father to the Holy Lands. While out there, they come across the newest technique for commiting to one's faith: bloodwriting. Via a special code, which relates the combination of bases in a strand of DNA to the letters in the Arabic alphabet, a benign virus could be created, which passes on its text to the unused DNA strands in your own blood. The text in this case being the Qur'an. I liked this story a lot, largely because it is one of the more balanced in the anthology. It touches on the evils of religious prejudice, intolerance, and the occasional folly of extremist fundamentalism. But at the same time, it reminds us of the good things that can come out of religion, when taken with a grain of salt, and combined with an open mind. While the protagonist has mixed feelings towards her father's choices and faith, she respects them, and in the end, she takes something from it that stays with her.
"Falling Star" is another dystopian piece. An old man, one of the last to remember how things were before it all went wrong, has to deal with weird looks and distrust in his own hometown (which seems to have reverted to the 1930s or '40s), because of his own experiences with the all-encompassing evil of technology, government, etc. Whether or not he had anything to do with the war, or disaster, or what have you, which set the world back a century, is irrelevant. He's tainted. This story illustrates the dangers of the ignorant, painting-it-all-with-one-brush mentality, which inhibits progress and promotes ignorance and fear, rather than open-mindedness, informed judgements and understanding. Throughout, he watches a man-made satellite making its orbit each day, knowing that it will soon fall into the atmosphere and be gone forever, and this saddens him; his fellow townsfolk watch that same star, yet they view it as a dark portent -- the work of the devil.
"Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream" imagines an intriguing parallel world, in which some people have something in their blood resembling serpents. The narrative takes us throughout history, largely the history of the parallel Catholic Church, starting with the 15th century, where the inciting event occurs: the first detection of said snakes, and the subsequent Christian interpretations of it. We find out later that rather than the traditional Catholic-Protestant schism, a division based on whether each individual was "saved" or not (whether they were snake-free) is the norm. Throughout history, science sheds light on the true cause of these "snakes," but the Church is undeterred. This piece is by far the most direct social commentary. James Alan Gardner uses this alternate history to point out how ridiculously arbitrary are the reasons different religious groups will condemn or wage war on each other. When you think about the blood shed over religion in our own history, and the political battles still raging today, it is not hard to imagine a world wherein the most important thing you need know about another person is analogous to their blood-type. This story is deadly clever, and perfectly poignant. It is an excellent representation of the intentions of this anthology as a whole.
"The Star" is a short but sweet piece with a surprise ending. In a far less topical, but much more succinct manner, it too illustrates how arbitrary some of the things we hold sacred can sometimes be.
"The Last Homosexual" is another bit of social commentary. The world imagined is one in which the creationists have won the battle, and now "science" is nothing more than a twisting of the facts in order to fit the preferred theories. Homosexuality, and most other sinful lifestyles and behaviours, are now considered to be contagious diseases. The power of self-delusion is evident, as scientists convince themselves of the accepted party-line, regardless of the data they collect, and the protagonist suffers hypochondria after a brief contact with the "sodomite" in question. 1984 comes to mind, of course, but this piece is perhaps more relevant to today, with our inane "is homosexuality a choice" debates.
"The Man Who Walked Home" is your typical story of technology gone explosively wrong, wherein remnants of the original experiment become an object of worship and supernatural wonder in the ruined world spawned along with it.
"When the Old Gods Die" is another of my favourites. The protagonist seems to wisely and benevolently want only the best for his people. He is the "mundumugu," a medicine man, for his Kenyan tribe. This story takes place sometime in the future, when every cultural group gets their own "Utopia," a planet given to them to terraform as they wish, and on which to live in whatever way they please. He tries to protect the new generation from falling into the trap of the tempting Europeans, at the expense of their own culture. But it soon becomes clear that he only wants to enforce ignorance in his people so that he can maintain control. He himself was well-educated before coming to this new-made planet, and knows all about modern technology. Yet he tries to prevent the villagers from making use of non-Kikuyu medicine for their ills, or tools for their toils, on pain of divine retribution, because he does not want to lose his power over them. Mike Resnick fools you in this piece, because we are so ingrained with political correctness, respect for other cultures, the evils of modern technology, and the idyllic purity of tribal living, that we are completely on the selfish protagonist's side throughout. While reading this, I found myself thinking, "Oh, no! They're going to be infected with 'European magic' and forget all about their 'Mundumugu'." A small child is swollen and in pain, and yet I am more worried about the taint of "white" medicine than the welfare of the infant. When the protagonist/narrator's spitefulness and bitterness finally become apparent, the true theme of the story sneaks up on you and really gives you a start!
"Oracle" is the final story in the collection, but at over 50 pages, it is really a novella, if anything. It tackles a lot of different themes, but ultimately, it describes a messenger from the future, come to the aid of a single mathematician, and between the two of them, they bring the world to the brink of paradise. But unfortunately, he is hampered at every step by bigotry and suspicion, not necessarily religion-based, because after millenia of recorded history, learning the hard way how to cope and what to expect of this cold, indifferent universe of ours, we don't know how to just accept a good thing. Although Greg Egan clearly takes the non-religious stance in this piece through his protagonist, he also explores the perspective of a devout Christian who is sure this must be the devil's work. This man, too, is a decent, well-meaning individual. At different points, each character sees the other's point of view, and both realize that the other is a good person, despite their differing beliefs. But with only God to thank for carrying him through the darkest periods of his life, the religious man cannot let go and accept the blessings of the new scientific golden age, being so convinced of where these temptations must have come from. It's a sad piece, because while Egan humanizes everyone involved, and conveys a message of understanding others' points of view, in the end, these differing ideals remain irresolvable. There is a gulf between both characters that is never quite bridged.
Galileo's Children occasionally lapses into pedantry, but there are enough stories in here that offer a genuinely new perspective -- there are enough questions raised, which are legitimately thought-provoking, and not clichéd -- there are enough pieces that simply must be read, because they just hit the nail on the head in a way that no one else has ever done quite so squarely before -- to overcome that. And if some of the stories contained within don't bring much new to the table -- at least in terms of perspectives on religion and science and tradition and society -- they are all well-written and enjoyable in their own way. I heartily recommend checking this one out. You just might learn something. For science!
