"Intoduction and Foreword by Poul Anderson" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nebula Awards)

of the year in its implications. Theron Warethe name is
derived from a greatly underestimated novel by Harold
Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware, written fifty years
agois a master of the arcane, a materialistic magician who
has turned the black art of necromancy into an instrument of
personal profit. Simply to see what might happen, this modern
Faust undertakes to let all of the major demons out of hell
for one night, turning them loose on the world with no orders
and no restrictions except that they must return to hell at
dawn. His undertaking is successful beyond belief because
his actions bring Armageddon and the resultant destruction
of the world. What all of the diabolists had not realized, they
are told by the ravening Sabbath Goat, is that God is dead.
When the bounds are loosed, the powers of evil must finally
conquer. End of novel.
Here Blish again asks ancient questions: What is the role
of evil in the world, and by implication or extension, what is
the position of suffering? In addition Blish raises the great
Manichaean problem once more: Is evil creative? If so, what
are its implications for our contemporary society, because
the society of Black Easter is uneasily like that of 1969. And
if evil is creative, perhaps diabolists such as Huysmans' des
Essientes or the Marquis de Sade were right after all to
worship Lucifer. Perhaps Rosemary's baby is real, alive and
well in Manhattan, awaiting His Infernal Kingdom and His
Black Easter.
Some readers may cavil with Blish, maintaining that his
artistic viewpoint is essentially one of fi "tasy rather than
science fiction. That may very well be, but at best it is a
quibble over form or shadow which ignores the substance of
Blish's arguments. Like Ivan, in The Brothers Karamazov,
Blish seems to imply that if God did not exist, everything
is permitted and the doing of evil becomes .virtually a man-
dated "good."
This kind of probing into the depths of man's consciousness
is impossible within the traditional science fiction novel.
Involvement with scientific gimmickry has too often robbed
science fiction of its humanity. It may be that the inclusion
of theologyand the other "soft" sciencesas viable subject
matter is one step toward the restoration of its human element.
Where fiction loses its ability to concentrate on the human
being, where it no longer informs, entertains, or enhances life,
it becomes simply a mechanical recitation of fantasized fact,
a trap that too much science fiction has fallen into. Theology
may help restore the balance.
First novels have many characteristics. Sometimes they are
so bad that about all that can be said for them is that the
punctuation and spelling display a startling originality. Too
often mainstream writers who attempt a science fiction novel
know almost nothing about the form. George Orwell's 1984