Book Description
In an annual tradition, the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America present the Nebula Awards to honor the authors of the year's most astounding fiction-compelling stories that widen the imaginative boundaries of the genre. Includes Eleanor Arnason, Richard Bowes, Cory Doctorow, Harlan Ellison, Carole Emshwiller, Jeffrey Ford, Karen Joy Fowler, Neil Gaiman, Charles Harness, Elizabeth Moon, Robert Silverberg, Adam Troy-Castro, and James Van Pelt.
Customer Reviews:
There Isn't a Science Fiction Writers of America Anymore.......2005-12-18
Although the SFWA, the organization which votes for and bestows the Nebula Awards, is supposed to stand for the Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America it instead in all sense and purposes stands for the Speculative Writers of America. I cannot imagine why the official change hasn't occurred yet. If there happens to be any science fiction in any of the stories awarded that's just plain happenstance. For those that have followed the field of science fiction, this is all old news. But there may be some out there that have heard that the Nebula Award used to be bestowed to the best science fiction novels and shorter stories of the year. That used to be true, until 1987. From that year forward, for four straight years, the Nebula was award to four subpar novels, no less than three being fantasy. The key thread I can see of these novels were they were written by women. Also 1987 saw the deaths of Robert Heinlein and Alfred Bester, male authors considered by feminists as being sexist. A few years later, the death of Isaac Asimov ended the old guard of science fiction. OK, so Robert Heinlein, Alfred Bester may be considered sexist, and times change, and there are new science fiction writers emerging. But is this the solution, swinging the pendulum completely to the other side, and awarding anti-Heinlein, pro-feminist novelists? Sure, it's great to recognize female writers, but now the Nebula becomes a political commentary instead of an award for the best science fiction of the year. And these series of four novels culminated in a feminist novel by Ursula K. LeGuin, one of the greatest science fiction writers of any gender, into which she pours her derision and bitterness and hatred. It was nauseating to read that novel, and she did it by exploiting her famed Earthsea series. Feminist stories started pouring out about this time. On the horrors of menstruation, pregnancy, custodians not be attracted to female monkeys. It pains me to have to write this, but once I've seen the seminal LeGuin put out a novel on feminism, then to me, no SF female writer was to be trusted afterwards. 1987 is the breakpoint; before that time there weren't any problems with female novelists. LeGuin, C.J. Cherryh put out wonderful novels. Officially in 1991 the SFWA changed its name to include fantasy. This was by then only a formality to that which had already occurred. The schism between science fiction and everything else just grew further apart from there. Damon Knight, the FOUNDER of the SFWA in 1965 himself wrote in 1989, the Nebula was not meant to be awarded, and should not be awarded, to fantasy. Well, whatever factions that supported that ideal failed miserably, and the factions supporting speculative fiction reveled in their victory. In Nebula Awards 27, the short story collection for 1991, Kathryn Cramer writes on the name change: "(a)lthough the advocates of genre apartheid make a convincing case for SF's (science fiction's) artistic and intellectual purity, they have clearly lost the war". Does anybody that wants to read science fiction appreciates being compared to a repressive, racist regime? Anybody? That's the arrogance of speculative fiction writers. She writes further: "(a)t this point, their only viable option would be to found a new organization with strict membership requirements". You know, this may not be a bad idea, no really. Years ago race car drivers broke away from the chief race car organization at the time and formed Nascar and look at the popularity of Nascar today. The highlight of the old organization used to be the Indianapolis 500. Does anyone even remember the Indy 500 anymore, does it even exist? And I'm sure the speculative writers would like this comparison as Nascar is considered low-brow. So... form a new organization with the `strict membership requirements' being writing (*gasp*) science fiction? The speculative writers shanghaied an elegant, prestigious, and well known organization for their own purposes because they were too gutless to form their own. Or do they know that there is little interest in speculative fiction. What is the following of speculative fiction in it's pure form, which is stripped of any science fiction? Science fiction has a large, loyal following accrued over the years, over decades. Yes, I could see the advantage of a coup within the SFWA. Why call it speculative, well it's not even clear if its fantasy. And since there's so little science, calling it science fiction would be a misnomer if not a blatant lie. In 1996, the SFWA even awarded the Nebula to lesbianism. Now this can be a protective, nasty group. One critic of the novel received 25 out of 28 unuseful notations, and that number is continually climbing. That novel had the protagonist using the net for her purposes, that's the extent of science fiction in the novel. And the publisher proclaimed it a brilliant blend of genres. To even say that novel had a veneer of science fiction is stretching it. I thank the heavens above that there exists the Hugo awards, since there's still at least one organization that can help guide one regarding the best ScF of the year. It used to be growing up you would hear of sf novels by word of mouth, from friends, but as you left college and old friends and started careers and accumulated massive responsibilities on your time and efforts, if you still wanted to follow the cutting edge of ScF, you had to turn to other sources, and that was the beauty of the Nebulas and Hugos. Well the Nebulas are now unreliable. Sure, the Hugos, which are voted on by readers of sf, has it's faults. Typically they tend to follow more established writers. So a very good book by a new writer may get overlooked by a good book by an established writer. However, superb books are recognized, and relatively unknown newer writers have been recognized. Once Lois McMaster Bujold became recognized, she started winning, and still is, a Hugo almost every other year.
Do you know what speculative fiction is? It's fiction. Wind and Wuthering, Pride and Prejudice, Vanity Fair would be considered speculative fiction. Why? because these events didn't really occur and the author speculated them. I'm not sure Dicken's Christmas Carol would be accepted by the SFWA. Entities going backward and forward in time, whoa, that smacks too much of space opera. There's been so many essay's written on `what is science fiction?' that if all were printed to paper hard copies they would effect the gravitational rotation of the planet. And with all that's been written, all the analysis, they still screw it up! The SFWA is bored, they consider everything that could be written in science fiction has been written. They want to write about Mayan spirits, magical amulets, auras, female monkeys being spurned by men for porno, lesbian's first coming out experience. And you know, having different elements in a story can make for great science fiction, except when they make up 99%+ of the story. The Blind Geometer by Kim Stanley Robinson, the 1987 Nebula novella winner was about a blind mathematician. And it was a great story talking about blindness, *but* it was science fiction too. Women though are thinking why the heck when writing science fiction do they have to be constrained by writing science fiction. It's unreasonable! They wanna write what they wanna write. And darn it, if it's going to be Mayan spirits, or magical amulets, or auras they're going to write it and if any science fiction-apartheidist says it's not SF, they're going to change what SF means. To take it another step, in 1992 Karen Fowler wrote Sarah Canary which of course was a finalist for the Nebula. In it the protagonist is a speechless birdlike female entity and is *of course* oppressed by males to be understood. Now, does anyone see the irony here? That Fowler has to use words from an item called language used for speech, and occasionally communication, to write about the horrors of having to use words and language. I guess her sending out her message telepathically wasn't working. One would hope that language could be used by both genders, but apparently it's only used by some to complain about having to use it.
The SFWA doesn't care what you, the reader, thinks, they know better. And it's not as if time has shown the power of these past winners, the novels on Mayan spirits and magical amulets are out of print; usually a sign of a book's lack of interest to readers. So, what can be done? Well... all we as readers can do is refuse to buy any of their `award winning' SF anthologies, like this one. Oh, well, the SFWA doesn't want you to do that. Well, there you go. So we, the readers, are oppressing these speculative writers that have taken control of the SFWA. And what is that oppression? 1) that we want to read science fiction, and 2) that it's good, heck, maybe even great science-fiction. Well, can you live with yourself for these horrid demands? Can you? So for now we have to rely on the Hugo awards. Irony is that the Hugo award winners are written by science fiction writers that are most likely in the SFWA. I wondered if they hold the Hugo's in contempt, as in what the hell do fans know about what good science fiction is. I saw the Amazon cover of Hugo Award Winners IV and it's hard to see but it looks like a garish 50's cover with a monkey girl swinging by a pendulum (hanging from somewhere unknown) in the midst's of multi-colored planetoids. That's how much contempt there is for science fiction readers. Speculative writers think of you as low-browed Neanderthals, walking around with your knuckles scraping the floor, chanting: `gimme space opera, gimme military SF'! And the term space opera I'm sure isn't meant to be a term of affection. What's space opera?, oh, anything that takes place in space. Vernon Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, this highly imaginative galactic-wide conflict was tagged as `space opera' and `simpleminded' to boot. Why was it called space opera?, because it didn't write about lesbianism or the horrors of menstruation. Another term used for science fiction is to call it Campbellian (for John Campbell, one of the original SF magazine editors) and for those that remember their Geology 101, this sounds similar to `Precambrian', a 4 billion year ago era termed for the start of the formation of the earth. Speculative writers and critics of their ilk like these comparisons, as well as to compare old guard SF to the dinosaurs. They consider their own nifty `broad' speculative fiction stories to the shrews living at the feet of dinosaurs. Yet ironically enough, the first I could see of the term `speculative fiction' is from 1947 from the writer that speculative fiction writers/critics apparently despise: Robert Heinlein.
Let's not give up hope on good science fiction. One of the things that was great about Star Trek was the positive vision of the future, where money, racism, planetary wars have been eliminated. And in cautionary tales were the warnings to help that we *don't* screw up, and continue to try to make this a better world. So that should go for the future of science fiction. I don't know the internal politics of the SFWA, but I'll venture a guess that there are some that want to write good science fiction and also want that to be recognized (via awards). And good science fiction does *NOT* have to mean military SF or star wars-ish space wars. You know, these so called speculative fiction stories aren't even original. Back in the Mesozoic era of science fiction, more concisely 1975, the Nebula award for novelette was given to Tom Reamy for his `San Diego Lightfoot Sue', a somewhat sleazy homosexual/bisexual-ish tale. But it was certainly an interesting story and in it was a tender love story. I can still remember the female character saying `Oh hell" as she realizes she's falling in love with the male character, who already loves her. And in this story was no more science fiction than devilish effects from mysticism. But it was such a refreshing tender tale that so what, some change, some differences, are OK. But now, every Nebula winning story has to be like this (and not even as good), and heaven forbid if it should have anything that smacks of science fiction. To highlight even further the differences, since 1995, with one novella exception, there have been NO overlaps between the Nebula and Hugo short-fiction winners! This is a bad, bad sign. And since the Hugo voters are doing what they always do, voting for what they like, one has to look at the SFWA's Nebulas. One day looking back and recalling this SF time period and what to call it, (like looking back at the 50's and calling it the Golden Age of Science Fiction), one could call it the Experimental Age. Where writers wanted to shake off the `science fiction' moniker and call themselves something the mainstream hasn't heard before but sounds cool like `speculative fiction', become the next Ayn Rand and have their works recognized like The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged. So instead of `the skies the limit' like 70's SF was, it's now `the empty dirt lot's the limit' and the race is on on how far to push the limit's of SF, ie how little science fiction can be in a story and have it recognized as SF. You can't help but wonder though if all these speculative writers are going to be like the proverbial hair metal bands, who one day wake up from their SpF haze and go 'it used to be about the science fiction man'. So for now, let's not give up hope. Let us huddle in our caves during the Speculative Fiction Nuclear Winter, gather around our campfires for warmth with what ever good science fiction we can locate from word of mouth or Amazon reviews. Right now, I've look at pre-1987 Nebula award finalists for some salvation. I'm even reading some cyberpunk, a subgenre I hated but now seems good by comparison. I am even going back, in irony of ironies, to Robert Heinlein for science fiction to read. But let us check back periodically on the status of the SFWA, maybe every once in a while though some review, they may even give an award to science fiction that's good, and then maybe we can purchase their award anthologies then. Good luck to you in your quest for up to date cutting edge science fiction. I'll try to write Amazon reviews when I come across any, hopefully you'll do the same, we'll use the Hugo's as guidance, and keep an occasional weary eye on the Nebula awards and their annual anthologies like this one.
Worth browsing.......2005-07-06
The Nebula Awards are given to authors by other authors, specifically the Science Fiction Writers of America. For whatever reason, this volume includes stories published in 2002-03, so it feels a bit dated. Nonetheless, it contains several gems:
* The Mask of the Rex, Richard Bowes: elegaic display of third-person-omniscient craftsmanship; possibly the most well-written story in the collection--it leads off and sets a high standard for the rest to live up to in a reader's eyes (and most don't)
* Lambing Season, Molly Gloss: vivid narrative of no-nonsense Westerner's encounter with an exploring alien; excellent sense of place and characterization; poignant
*Of a Sweet Slow Dance ..., Adam-Troy Castro: incandescent, stirring account of an outsider's visit to a place where life alternates, literally, between nine days of heaven and one of hell
* The Empire of Ice Cream, Jeffrey Ford: Ford's work only continues to impress; in this case, he presents the autobiography of a young man blessed or cursed by the sense-melding condition of synesthesia
I could see how most of the others won over fellow writers; however, for the 'usual' fan of speculative fiction, this would be a collection worth checking out from the library before purchasing new. (I won't name names, but some of the stories here simply weren't very accessible or beautifully written--and one, a winner no less!, has absolutely *no* fantasy or sci-fi elements at all.) A collection of essays is also valuable for the serious follower of spec-fic.
An uneven collection worth three stars--but the three it merits are bright indeed.
fabulous compilation .......2005-03-14
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America chose what they considered the year's best that is 2004, from both genres. An interesting short introduction by the editor emphasizing we've come a long way baby sets the tone of this fine anthology. Extracts from Neil Gaiman's winning novella CORALINE and from the triumphant novel THE SPEED OF DARK by Elizabeth Moon (as is the case each year) highlight the collection. Each of the seven short story nominees including the victorious WHAT I DIDN'T SEE by Karen Joy Fowler is included. Finally the novelette winner, Jeffrey Ford's THE EMPIRE OF ICE CREAM and three of the four other entries are provided. Included is a well written essay honoring new Grand Master Robert Silverberg followed up by his work "Sundance". An intriguing series of essays on movements in both genres will delight fans. Finally lists of films (the winner of course is LORD OF THE RINGS) and of the Rhysling Award for SF poetry winners round out a fabulous compilation that showcases the SF and Fantasy genres.
Harriet Klausner
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Dann, Jack, ed. Nebula Awards Showcase 2005: The Year's Best SF and Fantasy.(Young Adult Review)(Book Review): An article from: Kliatt
Ginger Armstrong
Manufacturer: Kliatt
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ASIN: B000ALVDWI
Release Date: 2005-07-25 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Kliatt, published by Kliatt on July 1, 2005. The length of the article is 452 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Dann, Jack, ed. Nebula Awards Showcase 2005: The Year's Best SF and Fantasy.(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
Author: Ginger Armstrong
Publication:
Kliatt (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2005
Publisher: Kliatt
Volume: 39
Issue: 4
Page: 28(1)
Article Type: Book Review, Young Adult Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
A comprehensive description of the transformation of Christianity, by the bestselling theologian who has defined this spiritual renaissance.
Customer Reviews:
Worth the read if you're interested........2005-07-15
In academic, seminary thesis-style prose, Fox weaves together the insights of a variety of traditions to present a vision of today in terms of the Cosmic Christ. What this book lacks in humor it makes up for in resourcefulness, as Fox exhaustively cites mystics, scholars, theologians, saints, politicians, scientists, poets, the gospels, and Christ himself. The point, which appears with mantra-like frequency throughout the book, is that the Cosmic Christ is in everything and that everything is in the Cosmic Christ. We are to see our times as one of mother earth crucified, according to Fox- a paradigm for the religious institutions of the west and culture at large, both of which he charges at length for devouring the youth, and dismissing sexuality, creativity and feminine strength in exchange for patriarchy and its left-brained, domineering competitiveness.
On the whole, this is a valuable read for anyone who wants to understand where religion might (hopefully) be headed in the next century, as we move towards the embrace of a "living cosmology" that draws on science, mysticism, and imaginative art. Although Fox clearly describes a healthy vision of transformation for our institutions, the message lacks `bite' regarding tangible solutions, elements which are noticeably missing from his hopeful forecast. But who has solutions, anyway?
If one can get past the style of delivery, which borders on prosaic, then there is a wealth of readable insight that may or may not be news, but is certainly important for our times. Will it make you laugh or cry? Probably not. Will it enthrall readers? On occasion. It is definitely recommended- if for no other reason that it's one of those controversial works that people tend to love or hate. It's sure to have the clergy ruffled and scratching their heads.
A Mystical View of Redeeming the Cosmic Order.......2005-07-11
"When I encountered this book in the late 80s, I knew that God was leading me to a different kind of faith than I had encountered in my churches ... ,and gave a name to the thing which had been tugging at my soul for several years" Jon Zuck
On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ:
Commenting on the above Selected Writings from St. Maximus the Confessor, An Amazon.com reviewer pointed " Maximus was something of a "bridge" theologian between east and west and, having been exiled from Constantinople, played an important part in trying to revive the Church in North Africa....he died a heroic death, earning the title of "Confessor." With great intellectual sophistication, he defended the hypostatic union of the two natures, human and divine, in Christ-or, more precisely, the union that is (The Cosmic) Christ."
For the traditionalist Reviewer, who iterates that, "to use meaningless jargon, superlative expressions which seemed meaningful because of their superlativity, rather than because of any possible meaning, etc. You know, newagers who confuse jargon with substance," I quoted St. Maximus to assure him that Fox committed no innovation but followed the (oldagers) eastern Church Fathers, and continued in the spirit of Vatican II.
The Cosmic Christ is Coming:
The Cosmic Christ, is with us, his Holy Spirit who sustains and revives the Church, his Cosmic bride in space and through eternal time. How is M. Fox expressing his vision, quoting biblical themes from infancy narratives, of all four Gospels, viewing Jesus life as revealing Cosmic unity in his baptism, temptation, transfiguration, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension is relatively unique in contemporary western theology. He keeps assuring the novel reader that he follow the steps of creation mystics and oriental Church fathers. He mentions the recent writing of Jaroslav Pelikan of Yale, the most prominent doctrine development theologian, who devotes a chapter to the Cosmic Christ who gives meaning to the Cosmos, redeeming its divine order and revelation.
Now Matthew Fox, a Dominican Creation Mystic in the Book's following chapters concludes that the Cosmic Christ is the title for the crucified and resurrected, whose paschal mystery is the prefigured salvation in the Old Testament, even more relevant for third millennium Christianity, redeems redemption of mother earth, and of cosmic pain, reveals the divine in all creation!
So far, so good. His conclusive vision in Part V, mostly in extrapolation of Vatican II; in redeeming of Worship, and deepening of Ecumenism but stays ahead of me, and many, in renaissance of sexual mysticism and artistic creativity.
Mystic Matthew Fox:
Fr. Matthew Fox, a Dominican thinker, became closely linked to Eastern Church mystical theology through his search on western medieval mystics, Meister Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen, whose spirituality and its apophatic terminology was rooted in mystical expression. His 'Passion for Creation' and 'Sheer Joy', asserts revelation of compassion as the central theme of Christianity in 'A Spirituality Named Compassion', and his culmination in Original Blessing, of an antithesis of 'Original Sin' doctrine added to his alliance with liberation and feminist tone theologies, made him suspect of Vatican's guardians of faith.
Mysticism Expert's View:
Jon Zuck comments that, Matthew Fox's Christian mysticism is to change our souls and our world. "This book is almost certainly the most comprehensive on what a modern mystical Christian worldview can be, and one of the most comprehensive books I've seen on anything, period. There are plenty of books on the trends of evil in this world system, plenty of calls for peacemaking, plenty of appeals for spiritual renewal, but Cosmic Christ addresses all these issues and more, with information, insight, and inspiration." He concludes, "Yet The Coming of the Cosmic Christ is the one almost certainly to be remembered as his masterpiece."
For serious students ONLY!.......2004-11-02
This is a book for serious students of the deeply mystical. It is not for everyone. The average fundamentalist Christian is much too low on the spiritual totem pole and too hypnotically programmed to be able to understand it.
Tired Heresies.......2003-11-20
A tired attempt to re-run the ancient heresy of Gnosticism. May impress ignoramuses who know nothing of theology. I attended Fox's lectures in Western Australia a few years ago. They were an incoherent babble of scientific gobbledegook, historical nonsense and psychological trickery. I am not a Catholic but I don't wonder the Catholic Church unfrocked him.
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ.......2003-10-28
This is a book for serious students of the deeply mystical. It is not for everyone. The average fundamentalist Christian is much too low on the spiritual totem pole and too hypnotically programmed to be able to understand it. Matthew Fox speaks of truths that can only be learned directly from God through meditation and prayer, not through religious double-speak and church dogma. Fox gives us the Aquarian Age message that the Christ is born in each one of us and in His entire creation.
Bible worshippers should look up everything he says because it's all right there.
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- A stranger with a message
- It changed my life
- Revolutionary
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Be Done on Earth
Howard E. Cook
Manufacturer: PublishAmerica
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1424125588
Release Date: 2006-04-24 |
Book Description
When man, the symbolic animal, forgets how to read his mythology, he watches the crumbling of the Twin Towers on television and fails to recognize David bringing down Goliath. He shoves his head under the sand of media babble while his leaders gather in the national cathedral to pray to a dead God. Decadent Christendom is not David. And a Christianity that prays to the dead God is a dead duck.
Customer Reviews:
A stranger with a message.......2006-11-08
A stranger appears in your life. He's attractive, but even more, he's charismatic, sexually alluring, but aloof. Everybody who meets him falls in love with him. And he's mysterious, suddenly disappearing and then popping back up again in the most unexpected places and times, but always with coincidental (almost magical) significance. And he's got a message for you--and for the world. And he wants you to spread it. He gives you a manuscript, and then he disappears again, leaving you with a mission.
This is certainly a familiar theme in mythological writing. From Richard Bach's Messiah or Myles Connolly's very Catholic Mr. Blue to the gospel stories themselves about Jesus, one of the ways "revealed" or spiritual insight is traditionally presented is as "the book within the book." There's a story about meeting the charismatic message giver, and within that story is the story or teaching he gives.
This happens in real life. It's not just a theme in literature or mythology. It's an actual experience people have. In my own life, my nicknamesake and first collaborator Toby Marotta entered my life in an almost magical way, invited me to help him edit his masterpiece Harvard doctoral dissertation into a publishable book, and then, leaving me with a copy to rewrite (and a message about the meaning of the gay rights movement), he disappeared with his exotic Parsi lover to search for crystals in India.
I just made it sound more magical and mysterious than it really was: Marotta's partner was a geology professor from India who imported minerals as a sideline business to teaching. This was just a business trip and I was left with just a copyediting job. But it was the start of my own writing career--and of my own understanding of gay consciousness.
So when Howard Cook relates the tale of his meeting the elusive, charismatic Bradford Lightfoot Dare in the strangest of places over a period of many years, I was ready to believe the story on several levels from the mythic to the mundane. Cook's story of Brad Dare is quite intriguing. He first shows up in a Trappist monastery, then as a nude model for life-drawing classes in Washington, DC. He's a dance partner to debutantes and a most eligible bachelor in the nation's capital. Next he's a Jesuit seminarian studying Teilhard de Chardin, and a little later, he appears unexpectedly as a housemate in a hippie household in Greenwich Village in the apartment previously occupied by the New York Queen of the Gypies--with writer Norman Mailer indirectly making the reintroduction. Then he becomes a gay porn star in San Francisco and a character in the development of West Coast New Age thought along with Ken Kesey and Alan Watts.
Especially because the tale begins in the 1950s, I couldn't help being reminded of Fred Demara, "The Great Imposter," (played by Tony Curtis in the movie) who beguiled the American public in those days with his story of living many identities, including Trappist monk. But Bradford Dare comes across in Cook's telling not as a daring adventurer (though look at his name!) thumbing his nose at convention and legalities, but as a dedicated and driven seeker of transcendent truths, though no less rebel.
Dare shows up again in Cook's life many years later, after Cook has successfully marketed a couple of books. He's been studying and thinking and making notes all these years, and now asks Howard Cook's assistance in articulating and promulgating the wisdom and enlightened insight he's gained.
And that's the book within the book: Bradford Lightfoot Dare's proposal for how to modernize Christianity and recreate the Church. Partly tongue-in-cheek and partly with multi-layered symbolism, Dare calls his message the first encyclical of Pope John the Beloved.
Blending modern-day physics and cosmology, a little Teilhard and a little Matthew Fox, comparative religion, some Joseph Campbell, intelligent New Age thought, progressed Christianity, American political idealism, evolutionary theory, postmodernism, (and here and there what seem like loose associations), Pope John the Beloved calls for a new Church of the Second Coming--also referred to (iconoclastically) as the Church of Kingdom Come - COKC (try pronouncing the acronym).
It's a sex-positive religion based in an evolutionary model of human nature with an openly gay priesthood (with a somewhat progressed understanding of the role of homosexual consciousness in evolution). Some of the tenets of COKC are intentionally controversial (like the proposal that genetic science will soon allow humans to reproduce in the lab, avoiding all the dangers of unregulated breeding, and taking advantage of the opportunity to improve human nature at the molecular level). But the suggestions for an updated religious model come across as heartfelt and genuine.
I've tended to focus on the frame of the story rather than the content. Brad Dare would probably prefer I was writing about his ideas rather than Cook's presentation. But I will leave readers to study Dare's "encyclical" on their own: it's a little overwhelming to summarize in a few paragraphs in a book review. I think men in the gay spirituality movement will recognize many of the themes (like the question "Was Jesus gay?"). But some of the ideas are fresh and come from unexpected directions (like the "final anthropic principle" in quantum cosmology). And, at any rate, it's not so much the conclusions that will draw readers into the book as the process. Whether you agree with the conclusions or not, the debate is interesting and the argumentation thought-provoking.
For me, as reviewer, the most thought-provoking was the question whether Brad Dare is an alter-ego and literary device of Howard Cook's multi-faceted mind or a "real" person. In a way, it doesn't make any difference.
I must say I was disappointed at the end of the book that the framing story is not recapitulated. I wanted to know what happened to Brad Dare. All we get at the end is that he is working on a follow-up about the Church of the Gay Salvation.
Be Done on Earth is a neat example of an ancient literary and mythical dynamic by which wisdom is personified in a charismatic person who inspires those caught in his magic spell to discover their own insights and to surpass him. I was pleased to suspend disbelief and enjoyed the book--just as 30 years ago at the start of my writing career I was willing to suspend disbelief and let my friend and fellow Toby be an inspiration and watershed in my own life.
I wonder if there's something "inherently gay" in finding inspiration in a charismatic person instead of an authoritarian institution or revealed text. I think that might be one of the subjects in Pope John the Beloved's second encyclical...
This review appears in White Crane Journal #71
It changed my life.......2006-06-11
Be Done on Earth is a subtle and complicated book. Like Arnold Toynbee
it sees Western civilization as the product of "Christendom" and raises
this question: Can Western civilization survive the challenge of Islam?
That the current geo-political conflicts are nothing less than a clash
of civilizations, and traditional terms like Armageddon are evoked in
describing current global conflicts. We are reminded that 21
civilizations have evolved on earth so far, and all are either dead or dying.
That Muhammad is the anti-Christ is taken for granted. Like Matthew Fox,
Hans Kung, John Shelby Spong, the author stresses the fact that
Christianity as an organized religion is rapidly being replaced by secularism.
Can can Western civilization survive? The answer is yes, but only if
it can "set its religous house in order." Be Done on Earth quotes
extensively from Alvin Boyd Kuhn's book, A Rebirth for Christianity, and
argues that for Christianity and therefore Western civilization to
survive Jews and Christians must rediscover their common origins in a
primitive religion that may even pre-date the pyramids. To become truly
catholic Christianity must become cosmic, discard its outmoded literalisms
and re-read its scriptures in the light of current sholarship. The
book's thesis that human evolution is now in an evolutionary phase
transition is presented in a cosmological and millenniel frame of reference.
The Gospel according to Luke, says the author, is a literary hybrid, a
cross between the gospel genre and a pre-meditated literary myth in the
Platonic vein. That interpretation puts Christianity squarly in the
camp of genetic engineering, the new eugenics, and transhumanism. Only
a "postmodern" reformulation of dogma can bring about a true
reformation. Which means that myth, metaphor, and cultural bias are necessary
parts of any religio-political ideology. Religious experience is deeply
and ineluctably subjective, or transcendental. Chapter 8 describes
the transcendental as a "fifth dimension." The title of chapter 11 is
"Notes toward a Postmodern Metaphysics" and lists a number of dogmas
for reformulation in the light of contemporary knowledge, or items for an
updated Christian metaphysics. Be Done on Earth is the kind of book
that has to be read more than once. The bibliography contains more than
100 items. All this may sound like heavy reading, but this book
actually reads like a novel. Don't miss it. It's a kind of book you can read
again and again and find new things to think about. The conversation in
chapter III, for example, "Expostulation and Reply" takes on a deeper
meaning when read a second time. I would give Be Done on Earth more
than 5 stars if I had more..
Revolutionary.......2006-05-05
This book is astonishing! What's behind these global conflicts, these endless wars and pyrrhic victories? Answer: mankind is in a phase transition; Homo sapiens, like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly, is metamorphosing into Homo nobilis stellaris. And that evolutionary process can be described by the terms Resurrection, Transfiguration and Ascension. In short, the Second Coming, as Carlo Suar?s has insisted, is a hand. The Jesus dogma that the kingdom of heaven is spread out upon the earth, that the kingdom of heaven is within you, that in the kingdom of heaven there is neither marriage nor giving in marriage, is becoming a reality. Eroticism and procreation are separating. The Gospel According to Luke is a literary hybrid, a cross between the gospel genre and the premeditated literary myth in the Platonic vein. Rightly read Luke's gospel establishes scriptural precedence for genetic selection and artificial insemination.
BE DONE ON EARTH is divided into 17 chapters. The first 4 chapters take the reader through a bird's-eye review of the American pop culture scene of the past half century: the McCarthy era, the counterculture movement, the sex revolution, the New Age. Two statements in these introductory chapters are highly significant: 1) This book is the work of Pope John the Beloved, who calls this book his "first encyclical," 2) Procreation and Eroticism are becoming disjoint.
Chapter V is a manifesto: "Physics and Christian metaphysics are in fundamental agreement regarding the relation of intelligent life to the cosmos. Misreading the Jesus narrative as literal history has led to Christianity's present decadence. By recognizing that physics and Christian metaphysics are consonant Western civilization, sorely challenged by militant Islam, can set its religious house in order and recover its messianic elan."
Chapter V also gives the reader a list of definitions of the terms used, and states the book's thesis in an abstract : "Recently - in less than one circuit of the solar system around the galaxy - a new species, Homo sapiens, has appeared on Earth. Within the past 60,000 years two genes involved in determining the size of the Homo sapiens brain have changed significantly. That factor plus the present burgeoning of technology and the empirical sciences indicate that the species is evolving at an accelerating rate. In the third millennium CE the pace of Homo sapiens evolution may reasonably be expected - in a socially stable global environment -- to become asymptotic."
Homo sapiens are now polarizing around two tribal centers, militant Island and decadent Christendom (a term used interchangeably with Western Civilization) competing for territorial dominion on a global scale. Mohammad, in Christian eyes, is anti-Christ, while the West in Muslim eyes, is a crusading empire of infidels.
Insistently set in a cosmic and millennial frame of reference, BE DONE ON EARTH constitutes a remarkable discourse, the political upshot of which is that the church cannot belong to the state, and in the present millennium the state, by reason of the messianic He-shall-reign-forever-and-ever principle, will, can and must belong to the church.
Challenging, thought-provoking, this books will shock and outrage all those who are at ease in Zion. For BE DONE ON EARTH throws fuel on the flames of our current culture wars, and is bound for that reason alone to be highly controversial. We look to see it topping the best-seller list in non-fiction before the 4th of July. Highly, highly recommended.
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The Coming of the Cosmic Christ
Matthew Fox
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Coming of the Cosmic Christ.
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Coming of the Cosmic Christ.
Matthew Fox
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A Life of Jesus the Christ: From Cosmic Origins to the Second Coming (Edgar Cayce Guide)
Richard Henry Drummond
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THE COMING OF THE COSMIC CHRIST
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