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Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works
Science-fiction & fantasy literature: a critical list with discussions.
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“‘Wait a second.’ Mojo couldn’t let this pass. ‘If this thing is a saint’s heart, why would it help people like Juanita and me? I mean, we weren’t exactly on a mission from God when those guys in the Suburban were chasing us. Why would it help us?’
‘It helped you because you were thwarting the will of Satan. That’s obvious,’ Grandmother told him.
‘It is?’”
– Mojo and the Pickle Jar,
Douglas Bell
Religion in Science Fiction and Fantasy
There is a belief held widely by those unacquainted with speculative fiction, and even a few without that excuse, that works in the field are either thoroughly secular or oriented toward bizarre heresies (read: “not the things I hear in the house of worship I attend weekly”). That is, I suppose, neither the most nor the least silly misperception of our fields in the larger world.
Science fiction and fantasy is, like all literature, about us, here, now. Authors—at least the better of them, those we are dealing with on this site—who have elected to till these fields have done so because (among other reasons) they offer special opportunities to deal with large ideas in unconventional ways, ways whose unconventionality may enable the author to better say and the reader to better hear (stretching metaphor a bit) those ideas away from the noisy arenas in which they normally appear. It is thus not at all surprising that many fine science-fiction and fantasy books have a theological theme or orientation, and listing some of those books is what this page is for.
Selection of titles for this list was by no means a clear-cut process, in that “a theological theme or orientation” is not a thing so easy to define as it might at first seem. In trying to get my bearings, I established a sort of metaphorical compass.
The first compass point was that the tales need not deal, overtly or implicitly, with the creed of any particular established religion: it suffices that a major thrust of the tale is an examination or expression of one or more metaphysical beliefs. For example, the works of Eric Eddison are powered throughout by—indeed, are the flowering of—a metaphysics that does not correspond even approximately to any established creed, but which Eddison evolved with long labor and felt deeply (check the linked essay on Eddison for more on that point).
A second point is that the religious or theological element or elements need to be “genuine”: that is, a tale does not qualify just because it contains or depicts some “religion”, however important in the tale, that the author invented only to further that tale, a “religion” not itself primarily addressing theological issues. Invented religions as such are not a bar to listing here—as in, for example, Shardik—but they must be (in my judgment, anyway) intended to say or illustrate something meaningful about genuine religious feeling.
A third point is that, to justify the “theological” blanket, the works, however probing, should not be those of an atheist (for example, while the oeuvre of James Branch Cabell deals very largely with how mankind may best deal with mortality, I ultimately excluded it because Cabell’s view was atheistic). By doing that, I do not intend to pass any sort of value judgment on Life, The Universe, and Everything; it is only that this particular list of works is premised on their expressing theological concerns.
(The careful reader will realize that “theological” is not the apt term, for belief systems such as, for example, Buddhism, do not posit a “God” in the sense that most Western religions do, and it is not even clear that Buddhism can rightly be called a “religion”—so that in such cases the theo in “theological” is oxymoronic.)
And the fourth cardinal point was that the tale need not be overtly about theology or metaphysics: it sufficed that the author’s worldview permeate the tale in a way that gives it some theological significance. Several authors, some prolific, in whose work the author’s strongly held religious beliefs manifest in the structure of the tale, but not overtly—J. R. R. Tolkien, Cordwainer Smith, Gene Wolfe, and a few others of that sort—could not possibly be omitted from a list of this nature.
Oh, and one other thing: no tale needed to be solemn. There are not a few light-hearted—even zany (as with the works of R.A. Lafferty)—works that nonetheless express or consider theological issues.
In general, I have, as usual in these specialty lists, tried to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Does Roberta MacAvoy’s “Damiano” trilogy really belong? Better to leave that to you, I think, than to omit it. On the other hand, I have, with serious misgivings, omitted Roger Zelazny’s work; much of that work is pastiches of real religions, from the Greek pantheon to the Egyptian to the Hindu, as well as the invented perhaps-religion of his recurring aliens, but all of Zelazny’s work is permeated with deep—almost morbid—concerns with individuality and death, and comments and insights of a truly religious nature pepper those works. In the end, I decided that they do not dominate the works sufficiently to justify listing them all here, but keep him in mind if literature of this sort is of interest to you.
If a given work or author doesn’t seem to you to belong here, perhaps you and I see his or her work differently, or perhaps I have just erred; but I hope, as I say, that my errors are inclusive rather than exclusive.
If you—like me—are into lists, here are perhaps the most manifestly and powerfully religious writers represented here:
G. K. Chesterton
E. R. Eddison
R. A. Lafferty
C. S. Lewis
David Lindsay
George MacDonald
Cordwainer Smith
J. R. R. Tolkien
Walter Wangerin Jr.
Charles Williams
Gene Wolfe
(So why are so many of these known by initials? There’s a PhD thesis topic awaiting an inquiring mind.)
One other thing: I have stuck here to novels—no collections of short stories (excepting George MacDonald’s collected “fairy tales”).
Zimiamvia (That is an omnibus volume of the three works below; because that omnibus is now somewhat expensive, I also provide links to the individual books of the trilogy.
Lafferty, R. A. *****
(Some Lafferty notes:
» Lafferty, like other prolific yet under-appreciated authors, is hard to sort into a coherent bibliography—this is the best I could do.
» The occasional “series” listed below don’t fully convey Lafferty: certain characters—like “the eminent scientist Willy McGilly”—recur, often as “cameos”, throughout his tales.
» The world is not always ready for genius: a shockingly high fraction of Lafferty’s published works were never printed in more than a few hundred copies each and remain shamefully rare, and correspondingly expensive; Centipede Press is now re-issuing all of Lafferty’s short stories, though sad to say the printings are limited and have thus themselves become inordinately expensive.
» Lafferty is hard to categorize: all or almost all his works are overlooked, are thoroughly—if not always obviously—religiously powered by his devout Catholicism, and are weirdly light-hearted.)
The Argo Mythos (This a complex, sprawling work with several subsets. The cycle also includes a few scattered short stories, not listed below. Be aware that many—most—component books of this cycle are now either very rare and correspondingly expensive, or, more commonly, absolutely unfindable.)
More Than Melchisedech: (This novel was published in three volumes; the link above is to a very rare and very expensive set of all three. The three individual volumes are each also rare—often unfindable—and quite expensive when found at all.)
Argo[rarest of the 3, normally unfindable at all—try an inter-library loan; also, do not confuse this book with “Episodes of the Argo”, below]
Episodes of the Argo[rare; often unfindable] (Also contains some material erroneously omitted from The Devil is Dead, but not the “interglossia”; the main story, a part of the Argo mythos, should have been subsumed into the novel Argo, but wasn’t.)
How Many Miles to Babylon?[rare; often unfindable] (Includes the “interglossia” from the novel The Devil is Dead, not printed in that book, plus a short tale in the Argo mythos cycle.)
The Centipede Press Short-Story Omnibuses: (A series still being issued, volume by volume; these are already scarce—sometimes unfindable—and expensive.)
hardcover (The omnibus collections above each comprise the seven vaguely related novels that are his total prose output, and are the preferred editions; they are expensive, but you are buying seven books. If you prefer them individually, these are they:)
The Briah Cycle: (A cycle with three major subdivisions.)
Book of the New SunakaSeverian of the Guild (The links above are to the two 4-book omnibuses; both are now scarce and expensive, so I also link below to the two 2-book omnibuses that the big ones comprise.)
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