Doctor Mirabilis (After Such Knowledge #1)

James Blish

Rated: 3.27 of 5 stars
3.27 · 11 ratings · 318 pages · Published: 1964
Doctor Mirabilis by James Blish
Blish created a trilogy, each volume of which dealt with an aspect of the price of knowledge, & gave it the overall name of After Such Knowledge (from a T. S. Eliot quote). The 1st published, A Case of Conscience (winner of the '59 Hugo Award as well as 2004/1953 Retrospective Hugo for Best Novella), showed a Jesuit priest confronted with an intelligent alien species, apparently unfallen, which he eventually concludes must be a Satanic fabrication. The 2nd, Doctor Mirabilis, is a historical novel about the medieval proto-scientist Roger Bacon. The 3rd, actually two short novels, Black Easter & The Day after Judgment, was written using the assumption that the ritual magic for summoning demons as described in grimoires actually worked. In that book, a powerful industrialist & arms merchant arranges to call up demons in the midst of a modern world crisis, resulting in nuclear war & the destruction of civilization. Black Easter is devoted to that element of the plot; The Day after Judgment is devoted to exploring the consequences of the destruction of the world, with an extraordinary ending in both narrative & theological terms.
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    The 'After Such Knowledge' series

    3.60 · 66 ratings
    adult · fiction · book · religion · sci-fi · horror · spirituality · violent-conflict · post-apocalyptic · supernatural
    After Such Knowledge reading order and complete book list  ❯

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    Doctor Mirabilis by James Blish

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