Book Review - Sacred Visions

Sacred Visions, edited by Andrew M. Greeley and Michael Cassutt. 1991.

This anthology of religiously-themed SF stories is the best work of its kind that I’ve yet encountered. The works included are all either by Catholic authors or on Catholic topics.

Included are three acknowledged classics of 50s SF: the original short story versions of “A Case of Conscience” and “A Canticle for Leibowitz,” and Anthony Boucher’s “The Quest for Saint Aquin.” These stories alone would make the collection worthwhile, but there are some more recent gems as well.

Robert Silverberg’s “The Pope of the Chimps” is a poignant and respectful exploration of the roots of religious experience. R. A. Lafferty’s “And Walk Now Gently Through The Fire” combines a post-apocalyptic tale about the apostles of a diminished Church with commentaries by Screwtape-like demons. It builds to a mystical epiphany of unparalled beauty. “Our Lady of the Endless Sky,” centred around Marian devotion, is about hard-working Moon colonists and the chaplain who serves them.

Several of the stories were commissioned specifically for this book. Jack McDevitt’s “Gus” is startlingly good. Gus is Augustine, or at least a computerized version of him, who spars with and then counsels a disillusioned seminary director. A story involving a (possibly) extinct race of alien converts to Christianity, “The Seraph From Its Sepulchre,” is vintage Gene Wolfe – mysterious, profound, and moving. Michael Cassutt’s “Curious Elation” reads like a Twilight Zone episode on guilt and regret healed by miraculous grace.

As with any anthology, there are a few works that seem out of place – the worst of these is Fr. Greeley’s contribution, “Xorinda the Witch.” A transparent clunker on the redemptive power of tolerance and sex magic over religious fanaticism, it might not seem too bad in a collection of New Age fantasy written by teenagers, but to find it wedged between ‘Conscience’ and ‘Canticle’ is almost painful. Nancy Kress’ long story “Trinity” isn’t bad but doesn’t fit, involving a technological version of sex magic that seeks contact with an oblivious divinity. And James Patrick Kelly’s “Saint Theresa of the Aliens” seems to see Catholicism as being primarily about fanaticism and anti-Communism.

This is certainly not a bad ratio, as anthologies go, and the excellence of the other works more than make up for it.

4.5 out of 5