The Star by Arthur C. Clarke

I’ve always been familiar with 2001: A Space Odyssey and it truly is one of my favorite films, now experience Clarke's written work has given me a much deeper appreciation for his take on the Science fiction genre. The Star stood out to me for one simple reason, for the spiritual nature of the work. It seems that most of the Sci-Fi of the golden age we very technical in asking questions about the future of humanity. Clarke, on the other hand, seems to come back around on the idea of using Sci-Fi to ask not just the human questions but the spiritual questions as well. Not just how we build a time machine or travel to another planet but how do we think about what the is meaning of life. Which you can see in his written works like The Star as well as 2001: Space Odyssey. Setting up a situation that we rarely see in other incarnations of the genre. What about the religious man in space? Even more extreme in The Star a Jesuit Priest one of the most religious groups of people in Christianity and for him to have a deal with his faith says a lot for the power of space. A challenge of faith is not anything new though and exists as a theme in works before Sci-Fi came to be, but in this Space and on a Spaceship, it seems to extremely heightened in intensity. A challenge of faith while sharing the same space as the gods, the heavens themselves and questioning your faith in God is a lot to handle. Exploring such a situation as well as a very realistic situation as humanity expands out into the unknown is profound and hard to deal with for some people. Especially in space.