Tuesday, 25 September 2018

Judgment

See Doomsday And Wine.

James Blish has a scientific end of the universe in The Triumph Of Time and a supernatural end of the world in Black Easter. The end of the universe involves anti-matter and is called the Ginnungagap because it is followed by new creations whereas the end of the world involves demons and is Armageddon with an unexpected outcome.

In Blish's Midsummer Century, John Martels dies and finds that he is being asked questions lacking semantic content. He wonders:

"Was this the Judgment?"
-James Blish, Midsummer Century (London, 1975), 10, p. 84.

No. His consciousness has merged with an advanced computer to which questions are being inputted. Midsummer Century is sf and its accounts of mystical states are rationalized. But someone from Martels' post-Christian milieu is bound to wonder about "Judgment."

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