Calculating God
2001 · book
An alien shuttle craft lands outside the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Out pops a six-legged, two-armed alien, 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, including events exactly like the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. Both alien races believe this proves the existence of God: i.e. he's obviously been manipulating the evolution of life on each of these planets. From this provocative launch point, Sawyer tells a fast-paced, morally and intellectually challenging SF story that just grows larger and larger in scope. Calculating Godis science fiction on the grand scale. "Spectacular. Much of the novel is relatively cerebral, but Sawyer excels at developing his protagonists into full-fledged characters, and he adds tension to his story in several ways. This is unusually thoughtful SF."-- Publishers Weekly "Sawyer once again demonstrates his wild talent for innovative, iconoclastic storytelling as he relates a thought-provoking, sobering, yet wryly compassionate tale of one man's discovery of timelessness even as his own time is running out."-- Library Journal "Sawyer presents, in a very entertaining and interesting way, arguments for and against God's existence. I can think of no better way to present these topics than this lively novel, and I'll recomme