All too often, SF writers out-do themselves. Novels weigh us down with details, explore every aspect of a character, or exhaust us with too much plot. By fixing the reader so completely upon that which the authors wish us to see, by the time the reader reaches the final page, no questions are left for him to dwell upon. Far from becoming a novel that could challenge the way he views reality, the story is remembered merely for its entertainment value. One novel which escapes this trap is If the Stars are Gods by Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund. By painting a picture of what one man could accomplish, by presenting fantastic visions of what might await us beyond our planet, and by leaving many of the big questions unanswered, this short novel generates a surprising sense of wonder.
For Bradley Reynolds, nothing is more important than humanity’s exploration of space. By preaching the need to study Mars, not only does Earth finally send a spaceship there, but he is on it. Later, an alien spaceship arrives in Earth orbit, and his accomplishments have made him the natural candidate to represent Earth. When the aliens tell him they can communicate with the stars, he convinces them to teach him how. After decades spent in a monastery, Bradley learns that aliens have again contacted humanity, but all the scientists can decipher is those who sent it call a gas giant home. Bradley uses his guile, and his contacts, to force Earth into building a space station in Jupiter’s orbit so as to study what life in the atmosphere of a gas giant might be like. Finally, in the waning years of his life, Bradley sacrifices everything he has accomplished by disobeying orders and traveling to Titan, where another curious life form has been discovered. The authors do not burden us with the details of Bradley’s everyday life, yet they inspire us by portraying all that an individual, committed to his goals, might accomplish.
Movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 2001: A Space Odyssey paint otherworldly visions that affix themselves within the viewer’s mind. From the aliens who visit Earth, to Corey (an augmented human encased in a metal travel machine), to the strange new forms of life the characters find in the Jovian atmosphere and on Titan, Benford and Eklund manage to convincingly portray beings different from us without fully explaining them. The same is true of the spaceships and the space station, and even of the alien signal that prompts the mission to Jupiter. In so doing, the authors retain that mystery of the alien that draws the reader to science fiction to begin with.
Like the above-mentioned movies, If the Stars are Gods bravely asks big questions without fully answering them. On Mars, Bradley finds one possible source of the life that now exists on Mars. But the realities of space travel force him to leave the red planet without knowing the full answer to how life evolved there. When the aliens teach him to sing to our Sun, the experience leads him to embrace religion as a necessary compliment to science, but he is left uncertain as to whether the Sun is truly a sentient being. Two of his staff on the space station, Corey and her friend Mara, are humans whose appearance and capabilities were biologically engineered to better serve the human race. Instead of celebrating their diversity, much of humanity regards their kind with fear and suspicion. By portraying human nature so realistically, the reader is left to wonder what it is in The Other that prompts us to such negative reactions, as well as ponder one fundamental question. Stories that portray aliens as benevolent seem vastly outnumbered by those portraying aliens intent upon dominating or even exterminating the human race. Could such fear and suspicion be what holds humanity back from devoting more resources toward exploring our solar system?
Indeed, If the Stars are Gods inspires us with the potential accomplishments of the driven individual, by suggesting the potential discoveries that await us in space, and by leaving us to question how we define ourselves in relation to others. Presented as an entree, it tantalizes our literary taste buds. Those who take time to savor its rich flavors are certain to mourn its absence of sequels.
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