Saturday, March 22, 2014

Space Opera - The Star







     This week is all about Space Opera, and I read "The Star" by Arthur C. Clark.


      And what a mind fuck this was.


       "The Start", in a nutshell, is about how a Jesuit priest astrophysicist tries to cope with his now faltered faith, due to the fact that the same star that marked the birth of Jesus was the same star that killed off an entire planet of people that were extremely similar to the people of earth.


          When I first finished the story, I had to reread the last page. I had never thought about faith in this way. It was a staggering realization, to say the least. Beside this mind blowing idea that the universe is linked together, what was interesting to me about this short story was the use of scientific terms. I've never been good at science, so reading the first page of this story was difficult to say the least. However, Clark does do a good job in taking the scientific terms and making them more understandable. By the end, I realized how big of a deal that was, and felt the same sense of loss and mind blowing realization that two separate worlds were so connected. That, although the feeling itself wasn't enjoyable, was what I enjoyed about the short story. It made me feel the hollowing loss of an entire planet and race. I've honestly never felt such emotions after reading a short story like the before. And that, I think, makes this story so successful, next to the plausibility of the two worlds being connected by this one supernova star. Just thinking about how an entire population was completely destroyed in order for the birth of one small child that would kick off the start of a religious movement that continues today is really mind blowing to me. And that caused me to think, "well, if that happened to them, that could most certainly happen to us!" even though it never factually happened. Just the possibility, the thought that something like that could happen and be intertwined with a whole other world is just....wow.

      This short story definitely gives you something to think about, long after you've read this story.

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