About this ebook
Calculating God is the new near-future SF thriller from the popular and award-winning Robert J. Sawyer.
An alien shuttle craft lands outside the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. A six-legged, two-armed alien emerges, who says, in perfect English, "Take me to a paleontologist."
It seems that Earth, and the alien's home planet, and the home planet of another alien species traveling on the alien mother ship, all experienced the same five cataclysmic events at about the same time (one example of these "cataclysmic events" would be the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs). Both alien races believe this proves the existence of God: i.e. he's obviously been playing with the evolution of life on each of these planets.
From this provocative launch point, Sawyer tells a fast-paced, and morally and intellectually challenging, SF story that just grows larger and larger in scope. The evidence of God's universal existence is not universally well received on Earth, nor even immediately believed. And it reveals nothing of God's nature. In fact. it poses more questions than it answers.
When a supernova explodes out in the galaxy but close enough to wipe out life on all three home-worlds, the big question is, Will God intervene or is this the sixth cataclysm:?
Calculating God is SF on the grand scale.
Calculating God is a 2001 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
An alien shuttle craft lands outside the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. A six-legged, two-armed alien emerges, who says, in perfect English, "Take me to a paleontologist."
It seems that Earth, and the alien's home planet, and the home planet of another alien species traveling on the alien mother ship, all experienced the same five cataclysmic events at about the same time (one example of these "cataclysmic events" would be the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs). Both alien races believe this proves the existence of God: i.e. he's obviously been playing with the evolution of life on each of these planets.
From this provocative launch point, Sawyer tells a fast-paced, and morally and intellectually challenging, SF story that just grows larger and larger in scope. The evidence of God's universal existence is not universally well received on Earth, nor even immediately believed. And it reveals nothing of God's nature. In fact. it poses more questions than it answers.
When a supernova explodes out in the galaxy but close enough to wipe out life on all three home-worlds, the big question is, Will God intervene or is this the sixth cataclysm:?
Calculating God is SF on the grand scale.
Calculating God is a 2001 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Ratings and reviews
4.5
59 reviews
Ian Goldfarb
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September 26, 2018
One of my favorite novels. The author is incredibly good at creating an emotional bond with the characters and simultaneously invoking scientific scenarios that really make you think. Read it 🙂
Andreas Matsoukas
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January 25, 2017
Excellent book that does what good science-fiction should do: make you ask some pretty big questions.
David Badilotti
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April 3, 2016
From the opening with aliens landing in front of the Royal Ontario Museum, through discussions of faith, psychology, and science, to a startling conclusion, it kept me turning pages into the wee hours. I have since read it a couple of times and each time it has provoked new thoughts.
2 people found this review helpful
About the author
Robert J. Sawyer is the author of Flashforward, winner of the Aurora Award and the basis for the hit ABC television series. He is also the author of the WWW series—Wake, Watch and Wonder—Hominids, Mindscan, and many other books. He has won the Hugo, Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial awards—making him one of only seven writers in history to win all three of science-fiction's top awards for best novel. He was born in Ottawa and lives in Mississauga, Ontario.
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