J-Sun
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- Oct 23, 2008
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Project Pope (1981 novel, 313 pages)
I read this mumblety-mumble years ago and can't even remember if I actually owned it and lost it or if it was a library book. Either way, this is only the second time I've read it and it might as well have been the first - I remembered almost nothing.
Basically, this is a tale of robots having created a, ahem, foundation that they call Vatican-17 which is modeled on but not at all identical to the Earth Vatican. Some humans have been taken along (and have special talents to sort of psychically explore other worlds and dimensions) and some aliens visit on pilgrimages. And they've created a computer who they believe is destined to become Pope. (It is called and treated as Pope already but there's a sort of teleological endgame as well.) However, the main protagonists are a couple of robot cardinals and, more prominently, Decker, a man who crash-landed years before the story opens after his crew abandoned him when they ran into a region of space that made Decker and them all terrified; Jason, a doctor on the run from the "law" of a kind feudal gangster world; and Jill, a lovely-but-for-her-massive-facial-scar reporter who wants to make a story out of Vatican; and Whisperer, the runt of a sparkly almost-immaterial race that used to live on the planet before the robots arrived, who telepathically communicates with Decker. (There are also big round alien "wardens" on the planet who haven't interacted much.) The doctor and reporter quickly become lovers and the doctor and the ex-spacer quickly become friends. The doctor and reporter also transform into the happy Vatican doctor and the house historian and become involved in the main initial conflict of the story. Turns out there is a faction of robots that want to focus on their faith (which is a sort of generalized cosmic gnosticism which only uses the trappings of old terrestrial Catholicism) and others who think the psychic cosmic explorers will bring knowledge from which a sound faith can arise (much like the computer pope). This fusion of science and religion seems to be the main theme of the book. One of the "Listeners", Mary, thinks she's found "Heaven" and the religious faction doesn't care if she has or not - they want to make her a saint and shut down the exploratory project. So Whisperer and Jason and Jill eventually team up to try to find Heaven themselves and determine its nature.
The virtues of this book are its having intermittent moments of real interest, interesting characters, a complex milieu, a weird and funny approach to its robots, and a really vivid, weird imagination and lots of ideas. The flaws of this book are a very slow, wandering, thin plot and a not-especially satisfactory climax. The milieu/plot thing amounts to a whole lot of complicated moving parts doing little, simple movement.
There is also the possibility that this is a brilliant and meticulously constructed pile of symbolism and I missed it. For instance, it seems to me a flaw that Jill has a stigma that doesn't seem particularly connected to anything thematic or otherwise and that there is a "miracle" that is then completely dropped without further exploration. But perhaps the surface flaws are due to a deeper authorial intent and someone could explicate and excuse them. But I doubt it and it wouldn't change the basic fact that this is a pretty loose book that didn't always hold my attention.
But it is full of Simakian-ness and would probably appeal to his most devoted fans and is perfectly readable to any sort. I give it a 2.5 in the sense of "publishable, professional-grade stuff, with something extra", but not quite one I "like".
Examples of the Simakian-ness are the comparison of Vatican to medieval monasteries where one can be sheltered from the chaotic galaxy outside; the appreciation of the mountains around Vatican, Jason's trip to "the autumn land" as his own private heaven; the stoic, taciturn friendship between Jason and Decker; the fuzzy fantastic imagination not overly concerned with wiring diagrams and hard science; the scientific/religious theme; and the big and little and distant people who contribute to the whole and the ordinary heroes of the book.
I read this mumblety-mumble years ago and can't even remember if I actually owned it and lost it or if it was a library book. Either way, this is only the second time I've read it and it might as well have been the first - I remembered almost nothing.
Basically, this is a tale of robots having created a, ahem, foundation that they call Vatican-17 which is modeled on but not at all identical to the Earth Vatican. Some humans have been taken along (and have special talents to sort of psychically explore other worlds and dimensions) and some aliens visit on pilgrimages. And they've created a computer who they believe is destined to become Pope. (It is called and treated as Pope already but there's a sort of teleological endgame as well.) However, the main protagonists are a couple of robot cardinals and, more prominently, Decker, a man who crash-landed years before the story opens after his crew abandoned him when they ran into a region of space that made Decker and them all terrified; Jason, a doctor on the run from the "law" of a kind feudal gangster world; and Jill, a lovely-but-for-her-massive-facial-scar reporter who wants to make a story out of Vatican; and Whisperer, the runt of a sparkly almost-immaterial race that used to live on the planet before the robots arrived, who telepathically communicates with Decker. (There are also big round alien "wardens" on the planet who haven't interacted much.) The doctor and reporter quickly become lovers and the doctor and the ex-spacer quickly become friends. The doctor and reporter also transform into the happy Vatican doctor and the house historian and become involved in the main initial conflict of the story. Turns out there is a faction of robots that want to focus on their faith (which is a sort of generalized cosmic gnosticism which only uses the trappings of old terrestrial Catholicism) and others who think the psychic cosmic explorers will bring knowledge from which a sound faith can arise (much like the computer pope). This fusion of science and religion seems to be the main theme of the book. One of the "Listeners", Mary, thinks she's found "Heaven" and the religious faction doesn't care if she has or not - they want to make her a saint and shut down the exploratory project. So Whisperer and Jason and Jill eventually team up to try to find Heaven themselves and determine its nature.
The virtues of this book are its having intermittent moments of real interest, interesting characters, a complex milieu, a weird and funny approach to its robots, and a really vivid, weird imagination and lots of ideas. The flaws of this book are a very slow, wandering, thin plot and a not-especially satisfactory climax. The milieu/plot thing amounts to a whole lot of complicated moving parts doing little, simple movement.
There is also the possibility that this is a brilliant and meticulously constructed pile of symbolism and I missed it. For instance, it seems to me a flaw that Jill has a stigma that doesn't seem particularly connected to anything thematic or otherwise and that there is a "miracle" that is then completely dropped without further exploration. But perhaps the surface flaws are due to a deeper authorial intent and someone could explicate and excuse them. But I doubt it and it wouldn't change the basic fact that this is a pretty loose book that didn't always hold my attention.
But it is full of Simakian-ness and would probably appeal to his most devoted fans and is perfectly readable to any sort. I give it a 2.5 in the sense of "publishable, professional-grade stuff, with something extra", but not quite one I "like".
Examples of the Simakian-ness are the comparison of Vatican to medieval monasteries where one can be sheltered from the chaotic galaxy outside; the appreciation of the mountains around Vatican, Jason's trip to "the autumn land" as his own private heaven; the stoic, taciturn friendship between Jason and Decker; the fuzzy fantastic imagination not overly concerned with wiring diagrams and hard science; the scientific/religious theme; and the big and little and distant people who contribute to the whole and the ordinary heroes of the book.
