The Alleluia Files
Well, I finished Shinn's Samaria trilogy last night, the final book of which is called The Alleluia Files. I was quite disappointed.
It was an entertaining enough book, with elements of romance, adventure, and mystery, but it wasn't really science fiction and it was barely fantasy. Sure, it was set in a fictional world (and the world is mostly nicely set up), but that fictional world isn't developed much further in this book than it was in the previous books. Even more disappointing, the consequences of the discoveries of the second book were given short shrift, overshadowed by love scenes and chase scenes.
At the end of the second book, the archangel Alleluia and her lover Caleb, a staunch atheist, discover the truth of Samaria's god. Instead of Jovah, the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful deity they think they have been praying to, they find a spaceship called Jehovah. The spaceship carried the original settlers from their homeworld to Samaria and was set up by the technophobic settlers to take care of basic needs--controlling the weather, providing food and medicine in emergencies, etc. This spaceship responds to their prayers (which are sung to the god) because it recognizes specific melodic sequences. It's voice-activated, in other words.
This is interesting stuff. It raises questions by the end of the second book about how the settlers will deal with this information, about how technology affects religious faith, and about how religious theory and practice interact. But The Alleluia Files does not deal with these issues. In this book, Shinn acknowledges that these would be issues, for the tension underlying both plotlines is the desire of the archangel (who knows this truth) to keep this truth hidden at all costs, but this only speaks to the way those in power work to maintain that power. Only very briefly does Shinn deal with the larger questions to be asked about the place of God in a technological and scientific world.
In the final chapter of The Alleluia Files, the most important settlers held the first "postapocalyptic conference" to discuss what should be done after Alleluia's discovery of over 100 years prior has been made public. Understandably, the angels and religious settlers have difficulty reconciling their beliefs and emotional attachment to Jovah with the existence of the spaceship Jehovah and they resist abandoning their religion. But in the process of this resistance, Mercy, one of the angels, one of the most caring and considerate angels, repeatedly and insistently argues that the atheism of the rebel group's leader is dangerous. She asks, If there is no god, what is left but science? What is left to endow us with any grace? You can tell me the chemical of my skin and my brain, but how can you explain away my soul? And if there is no god to watch over me, chastise me, grieve for me, rejoice with me, make me fear, and make me wonder, what am I but a collection of metals and liquids with nothing to celebrate about my daily living? (429)
Conran, the atheist with whom she is arguing, replies that her friends are there to fill those emotional needs, that she does not need a god to have someone to watch over her, chastise her, etc. But her response, again, is typical of those who want to dismiss atheism out of hand: Do you truly want to live in a universe where you, Conran Atwell, are the highest achievement, the only moral arbiter and the final judge? I do not trust to your goodness enough. I do not trust to any man's. If we do not have a god, we have no limits. And a race without limits will become savage in a generation. (429)
Conran of course counters that he is not a savage and that he does not require a god to keep him moral, but his reply is ignored by the rest of the group as the discussion quickly moves on.
And in the face of all the evidence, the rest of the group insists on arguing that even though the god they have been worshiping for centuries is no god after all, there must be a god out there, a god bigger than Jovah, a god bigger than their culture.
I had hoped that this book, especially following the developments of Jovah's Angel, in which the atheist character is treated much more favorably and realistically and in which the atheist character at the end is neither converted to their religion nor left out in the cold, would explore the implications of living in a world where there is no god, where ethics is not dependent upon a Big Brother watching from the sky. Mercy asks, "without the threat of the world's destruction, would we be able to live as harmoniously as we do?" (428). It is not the answer here that is important, but the fact that the question must be asked. They all believe this, that peace is unattainable without Big Daddy in the sky making them be good. They believe this even though the evidence in the texts illustrates the precise opposite. There are many good characters who are religious, but there are also many evil characters who are religious, who use their religion to justify their evil actions. In this case, as in the real world, religion is as much to be blamed for society's ills as it is to be praised for society's accomplishments.
Shinn presents a world in which religion is central, technology and science are growing to be so, and the two are in conflict. This should be interesting and insightful. It is certainly relevant to our world. Instead, it is trite and simplistic. Shinn chooses to reinforce romantic notions of religion instead of really examining its effects. She chooses to vilify atheism instead of really looking at the behavior of its adherents. She chooses to sidestep the real questions in favor of adventure and a couple of paragraphs of discussion.
Perhaps I expected too much of the books. Or perhaps they really are that disappointing.
It was an entertaining enough book, with elements of romance, adventure, and mystery, but it wasn't really science fiction and it was barely fantasy. Sure, it was set in a fictional world (and the world is mostly nicely set up), but that fictional world isn't developed much further in this book than it was in the previous books. Even more disappointing, the consequences of the discoveries of the second book were given short shrift, overshadowed by love scenes and chase scenes.
At the end of the second book, the archangel Alleluia and her lover Caleb, a staunch atheist, discover the truth of Samaria's god. Instead of Jovah, the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful deity they think they have been praying to, they find a spaceship called Jehovah. The spaceship carried the original settlers from their homeworld to Samaria and was set up by the technophobic settlers to take care of basic needs--controlling the weather, providing food and medicine in emergencies, etc. This spaceship responds to their prayers (which are sung to the god) because it recognizes specific melodic sequences. It's voice-activated, in other words.
This is interesting stuff. It raises questions by the end of the second book about how the settlers will deal with this information, about how technology affects religious faith, and about how religious theory and practice interact. But The Alleluia Files does not deal with these issues. In this book, Shinn acknowledges that these would be issues, for the tension underlying both plotlines is the desire of the archangel (who knows this truth) to keep this truth hidden at all costs, but this only speaks to the way those in power work to maintain that power. Only very briefly does Shinn deal with the larger questions to be asked about the place of God in a technological and scientific world.
In the final chapter of The Alleluia Files, the most important settlers held the first "postapocalyptic conference" to discuss what should be done after Alleluia's discovery of over 100 years prior has been made public. Understandably, the angels and religious settlers have difficulty reconciling their beliefs and emotional attachment to Jovah with the existence of the spaceship Jehovah and they resist abandoning their religion. But in the process of this resistance, Mercy, one of the angels, one of the most caring and considerate angels, repeatedly and insistently argues that the atheism of the rebel group's leader is dangerous. She asks, If there is no god, what is left but science? What is left to endow us with any grace? You can tell me the chemical of my skin and my brain, but how can you explain away my soul? And if there is no god to watch over me, chastise me, grieve for me, rejoice with me, make me fear, and make me wonder, what am I but a collection of metals and liquids with nothing to celebrate about my daily living? (429)
Conran, the atheist with whom she is arguing, replies that her friends are there to fill those emotional needs, that she does not need a god to have someone to watch over her, chastise her, etc. But her response, again, is typical of those who want to dismiss atheism out of hand: Do you truly want to live in a universe where you, Conran Atwell, are the highest achievement, the only moral arbiter and the final judge? I do not trust to your goodness enough. I do not trust to any man's. If we do not have a god, we have no limits. And a race without limits will become savage in a generation. (429)
Conran of course counters that he is not a savage and that he does not require a god to keep him moral, but his reply is ignored by the rest of the group as the discussion quickly moves on.
And in the face of all the evidence, the rest of the group insists on arguing that even though the god they have been worshiping for centuries is no god after all, there must be a god out there, a god bigger than Jovah, a god bigger than their culture.
I had hoped that this book, especially following the developments of Jovah's Angel, in which the atheist character is treated much more favorably and realistically and in which the atheist character at the end is neither converted to their religion nor left out in the cold, would explore the implications of living in a world where there is no god, where ethics is not dependent upon a Big Brother watching from the sky. Mercy asks, "without the threat of the world's destruction, would we be able to live as harmoniously as we do?" (428). It is not the answer here that is important, but the fact that the question must be asked. They all believe this, that peace is unattainable without Big Daddy in the sky making them be good. They believe this even though the evidence in the texts illustrates the precise opposite. There are many good characters who are religious, but there are also many evil characters who are religious, who use their religion to justify their evil actions. In this case, as in the real world, religion is as much to be blamed for society's ills as it is to be praised for society's accomplishments.
Shinn presents a world in which religion is central, technology and science are growing to be so, and the two are in conflict. This should be interesting and insightful. It is certainly relevant to our world. Instead, it is trite and simplistic. Shinn chooses to reinforce romantic notions of religion instead of really examining its effects. She chooses to vilify atheism instead of really looking at the behavior of its adherents. She chooses to sidestep the real questions in favor of adventure and a couple of paragraphs of discussion.
Perhaps I expected too much of the books. Or perhaps they really are that disappointing.