interplanetary fiction and dreamed of sending explorers to thernMoon and Mars. It was a primary motivation.rnThis brings me to a third cause of the death of science fiction,rnperhaps not so obvious as the others. Science fiction, justrnlike the space program which it inspired and celebrated, alwaysrnhad a spiritual component. Clarke put it simply in his classic essayrn”The Challenge of the Spaceship” (1946): “The future developmentrnof mankind, on the spiritual no less than the materialrnplane, is bound up with the conquest of space.” PossiblyrnClarke has the causality reversed—as a proposition, the conquestrnof space always presumed the continued spiritual vivacityrnof mankind—but the relation is no doubt recursive. Anyonernwho doubts that science fiction was spiritual should peruse Stapledon’srnLast and First Men (1930) and Starmaker (1937),rnClarke’s Childhood’s End, or Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle forrnLeibowitz (1960). In Last and First Men, Stapledon conceivesrnhis speculative, two billion-year future of the human race as arnset of expanding variations on two themes from the Greco-rnHebrew axis: “Socrates, delighting in truth for its own sake andrnnot merely for practical ends, glorified unbiased thinking, honestyrnof mind and speech. Jesus, delighting in the actual humanrnpersons around him, and in that flavour of divinity which, forrnhim, pervaded the world, stood for unselfish love of neighboursrnand of God.” All human adventure derives from the dialecticrnof those two creeds. In Starmaker, Stapledon speculates aboutrn”the Christs of the many worlds” and concludes his explorationrnof the universe through space and time in a confrontation withrnCod. Childhood’s End also deals with the eschatological, whilernA Canticle for Leibowitz is unadulterated Thomistic theologyrnfrom beginning to end. Lem, too, is a theologian in mysteriousrnworks like Solaris (1962) and His Master’s Voice (1968). EvenrnPal’s cinematic War of the Worlds ends, as does Wells’ novel, onrnan invocation of the Deity.rnOne of the outstanding exceptions to the declining standardsrnof the field in the late 60’s and 70’s was Philip K. Dickrn(1928-1982). Always a maverick, Dick became increasinglyrntheological in his orientation during this period. While undertakingrnthe role of a kind of latter-day Christian apologist in novelsrnlike VALIS (1981), The Divine Invasion (1982), and ThernTransmigration of Timothy Archer (1982), Dick explicitly attackedrnMarxism as a pernicious—indeed inhuman—force inrnthe history of our beleaguered century. In the posthumouslyrnpublished account of a mystical vision that befell him in Februaryrnand March of 1974, In Pursuit ofValis (1991), Dick makes itrnclear that, at the end of his disturbed yet clairvoyant life, he sawrnhis own work as a consistent response to the radical moral crisisrnof his age; humanity faced the choice, in Dick’s analysis, betweenrna humane spirituality passing from Hebrew revelationrnthrough Creek metaphysics to Gospel compassion, and an inhumanrnmaterialism whose proximate sources were (paradoxically)rnKarl Marx and Madison Avenue. Despite the claim thatrnthe “cyberpunk” authors make on his pedigree, Dick bestridesrnhis shrunken world like a colossus. He was prophetic and magnanimous;rnthey are myopic and self-absorbed. His element wasrnthe spirit; theirs the mere ego.rnIf, as Dick argued, science fiction stems ultimately from therntheophanic and cosmic vision of the earliest Westernrnthinkers—from the pre-Socratics, from Plato, from Epicurus—rnthen its spiritual element is understandable. Does anyone rememberrntoday that the question of “the plurality of worlds,” ofrnthe habitation of extraterrestrial planets by other humanities,rnfirst surfaced in Epicurus and was once debated by Catholicrnand Protestant theologians? (When Pope wrote his “UniversalrnPrayer,” he really meant it to be universal.) To the extent thatrnpostmodern humanity rejects the spiritual, it will reject sciencernfiction, just as it will reject any participation in astronautics.rnNotice the yawning indifference that ensued after DanielrnGoldin’s announcement, early last August, that NASA scientistsrnhad found a Martian rock filled with microfossils.rnIn the immediate aftermath of World War II, science fictionrnrepresented a civilization possessed by its extrovert impulse.rnWhat Clarke called “The Challenge of the Spaceship” reflectedrna transcendental orientation and a boundless confidence inrnmaterial means. Atomic energy, unleashed destructively at thernend of the war, could be harnessed to propel men to Mars or beyond.rnTo Clarke, in 1946, it appeared inevitable.rnOnce upon a time, the Vikings sailed forth into the unchartedrnNorth Adantic; in 1961, John Kennedy enjoined NASA tornput a man on the Moon, whereupon several thousand scientistsrnand engineers, many of them readers of science fiction, accomplishedrnjust this. Then youth culture appeared, people tunedrnin, turned on, dropped out, and finally they went into politicsrnor the academy. In the frog-pond of their torpor they spawnedrna culture turned, not healthily outward, but neurotically inwardrnin the most debilitating and disastrous way. They have forgottenrnthe stars; they are bereft, it seems, of grand or noble urges.rnTheir interest lies in doliks, spindfars, and punforgs, or in theirrnpolysyllabic, postmodern equivalents. They flirgleflip.rnRest in peace, science fiction. >^{ •rnSonnet 106rnby MichelangelornTranslated by John Frederick Nimsrn(Per ritornar Id donde venne fora …)rnFrom heaven it ventured forth, there must return,rnthe immortal soul. To your flesh, its lifetime jail,rnan angel of mercy it came, to countervailrnour tainted thought, show fit respect for earth.rnMy love’s on fire only for this, whose worthrnis beyond your classic beauty that takes the eye.rnFor what else, in this spawning hubbub born to die,rncan a love all truth and honor hope to yearn?rnThat’s how with all things noble, new-created,rnthat nature lavished her care on, heaven toornrifled its treasures for. Thanks be, that wherernin the main God shows His glory, it’s radiatedrnveiled in some mortal form it shimmers through.rnAnd it’s such I love, for the beauty mirrored there.rnMAY 1997/17rnrnrn