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 Review #4801760 |
 | The Cycle of Wonder: The Last Question  [E] literary essay that intertwines personal experience with Asimov’s The Last Question  |
| (3.5)| Hello, Polaran . This is a review of "The Cycle of Wonder: The Last Question" by invitation from "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" !  I have the following comments to offer. Reader ExperienceAzimovs last question had to do with the problem of entropy and man's quest to see it reversed. Must all life and indeed creation itself fade away at the last? The question is answered by a computer, an AI conceived in the 1950s, that has evolved through time to become a Mighty being beyond time and space. It says 'Let there be Light' and the Cycle of life is relaunched. In this account, written in the first person, there is a fall from and return to God. The author cycles back to where it all began, 'let there be light.' CommentaryThere was a depth and innovation to Azimov missing in a lot of modern Sci-Fi which is unhinged from Christian reality even by way of reaction to it. He was talking about AI in the fifties and asking the biggest questions about the fate of humanity. For him technology (the AI) ultimately replaces God. In the 'Last Question,' he marries Christian theology of the creation, the second law of thermodynamics, and the Buddhist/Hindu wheel of recurrence (Kalachakra). Your piece loosely echoes these themes. Of course, Azimov, like many others misread the Judaeo-Christian account of creation. The first words of Genesis read: 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. The heavens and the earth were created and THEN God said let there be light. So while God is Light the experience of being on the earth before God spoke those words was of existence but also darkness. It is not the words 'let there be light' that create a new universe, rather they switch the lights on earth on. Also, the Judeao-Christian account of creation posits a beginning and an end. Before there was nothing, creation was ex nihilo, but at the end of things, God judges all. It is not a cycle, man lives once and then faces judgment. It was attempts to marry Christian theology with the Big Bang explosion of light theorized as the beginning of creation that put those words center stage. The words of an atheist like Azimov misquoting scripture and allocating the recreation of all life to a machine sound preposterous to me now, though once I thought them clever. You write very well and I loved a great many lines in this piece. For example: There was no voice and no vision, only a certainty that pressed softly but unmistakably into the cracks of my ruin. Through a path I could never have paved, He placed me back into life. I had no problems with the fall and redemption motif and it works well with the theme of entropy and then the reversal of entropy as experienced in your life without God, now restored. God's Light had always been there but you stumbled around in the dark because you were blind to him. As you rejoined the Christian life your spiritual vision improved until His light filled all things. I liked the account of how fall and redemption had you circling God living in the dark and then realizing that His light was always there. You were in the church, then out then in again. But then there is this line which seems quite blasphemous. This time, the voice was mine. I was the question and the answer. I was the seeker and the sought. I was the end, and I was the beginning. At the center of the cycle— at last— I created my universe. It echoes the proclamation of God's name from the burning Bush. I AM who I AM, I will be who I will be. Are you the question and the answer, the seeker and sought the Alpha and the Omega or is God those things? It is one thing to find one's calling and to finally start to live it out in a universe centered on God. There is a reality and a vibrancy about that. However, it is another thing to claim for yourself attributes that only truly belong to Him in your own little bubble of consciousness. Overall I liked this except for that finish. Mechanical issuesThe opening line needs reworking: A haze of forgotten memories brushed against me, faint and fleeting, like the echo of a dream beyond reach. Something that brushes against you is hard and physical while what you describe is more like a fog or wind or ethereal thing. So maybe wafted through me. Again as with other pieces you have written you use extra lines to pause for dramatic effect. It makes the text look like poetry or the script of a play. But does not always work, this is just one example: I opened my lips. And the words came— Grammatically this should be I opened my lips and the words came, If you are doing your pause for dramatic effect between opening your lips and then the arrival of the words then it should read I opened my lips. The words came Thanks for sharing.
"WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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