 Hello, hello, hello, I'm Philip Magnus and today I will be talking about A Case of Conscience by James Blish. Yes, it's another book review. I know you're as excited about it as I am. In what a complex topic James Blish tackles in his 1959 Hugh Award-winning novel, Father Ruiz Sanchez is one of a committee of four members sent to explore the world of Littier and offer advice on what the planet's role should be regarding humanity's expansion. When the father discovers the Littian race of perfectly rational and highly evolved lizards has reached the crux of its civilization without any form of religion or morality based on a religion, he has a we freak out and concludes that the planet must be put under quarantine forevermore. This decision comes from Ruiz Sanchez's belief that Littier is a trap designed for humanity by the enemy by Satan himself which in turn has dangerous consequences for the priest. He falls into the heresy of machianism which offers a metaphysical and moral dualism centered around the belief that evil is in fact as powerful as good and that to God's goodness there is Satan who is equally capable as him to imbue life, to create life, to create, to all but evil. Now that is dangerous because it equates God and Satan in Christianity and it is a heresy because obviously we want as good Christians as all of us are, we want to have God triumphing over evil and Satan is not even a shadow to him, he's just another part of the plan right? So it's really cool stuff if you're a Christian back in the fourth century of the current era but less cool if you're a Jesuit priest in some future reality and you should know better after all being a Jesuit priest and since the thing with Jesuit priests is that they are kind of the first line of defence in terms of battling heresy. So that is a very cool concept to work with from the point of science fiction, it's something that rarely is done, it's few science fiction novels that tackle religion in so massive a way, some of my favourites are Lord of Light which does some really cool Hinduist and Buddhist stuff and a later one we'll talk about very soon on the channel is a canticle for Lieberwitz by Walter M. Miller which also uses Catholicism but in a very different context. Now the first part of this novel a case of conscience it deals with the father arguing this case of machinism or machinism, I'm bothered with the pronunciation of that particular word, anyway you get me, you get me. So he is arguing this case right on very religious grounds and propagating a heresy he is very conscious of to his three scientist colleagues the rest of this panel of researchers sent to Lydia. So we have an in very intellectually stimulating back and forth which sees three points of view clash against one another twisting and turning in very unexpected ways all of which just allow us to build full pictures of the characters who are the mouthpieces for these three points of view. Now this is half the book and it's not a very long book the second half and it is almost a secondary plot thread deals with a Lytian come to earth he is given as a gift and the Lytians are basically these reptile creatures who go through the full gamut of Darwinian evolution. What we have is this tiny baby Lytian it's really not an amoeba but you know it's those it's a tadpole like the frog's tadpoles basically that we've got it given to the priest by his Lytian friend not really a friend but someone that the priest converses with and someone whose conversation allows the priest to fully realize his idea. So this second plot thread it deals with Lytian tadpole eventually grows up because the Lytians they go through a very kind of fast evolutionary cycle and this Lytian having been taken out of its environment and forced among humanity it becomes an outsider amongst a race of outsiders. What we have is rather than a study of Lytian packed in a few dense chapters told over a shared span of time did I say shared what short short span of time. Blish tells this second part of the novel over a longer period concentrating more on the dangers of rousing an angry populace through the use of modern media by Demagogue which is kind of eerie to read in 2021. Jipes towards our common political reality aside the latter half of the book deflates a little compared to the strong start. The Lytian who grows up with all the rational capacity of his species is able to throw into chaos a humanity driven mad underground and this is a notion I appreciate very much the ultimate outsider drawing from the fears of this alienated populace towards the violent friends of populace violence purpose less violence eventually however we are returned to the original conversation of the book and treated to a hell of a conclusion. This is a sci-fi of its time in that it speaks directly to the fears of the 1950s of the late 1950s no less of an uncoming nuclear apocalypse humanity back on earth lives mostly under billions of tones of concrete set in multiple layers the lack of sunlight and living like rats in this maze for most of the population and a population that is threatened by the constant possibility of nukes raining down now this maze has created a number of psychoses to appear and spread all throughout humanity and all that's necessary for things to spin out of control is a demagogue with a powerful enough will and rhetoric and again it's a little bit eerie in it it is a good sci-fi I can see why it's won the hugo I'd recommend it if you're interested in the questions of fate from angles outside the strictly religious as well as if you're itching for a work that has just about the most nightmarish view of how far the cold war might have pushed humanity as well as an ending that puts a whole new spin to the word ambiguous fun stuff tell you what if you enjoyed this video let me know in the comments down below share it with your friends maybe even throw a like and a subscription my way I always appreciate them and they keep me motivated to do more I'll see you again next time for some Starship Troopers discussion by Robert A Heinlein not the 90s B movie the book in some ways is better in others I'm not quite sure I did not enjoy that one but I am very interested in examining several aspects of it I'll see you next time bye