The Last Starship From Earth by John Boyd

In a world ruled by the robot Pope, an easily seduced mathematician is
led astray by an alluring poet.

https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/build-this-dream
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On Sun, 3 Mar 2024 14:13:31 -0000 (UTC), jdnicoll@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:

>The Last Starship From Earth by John Boyd
>
>In a world ruled by the robot Pope, an easily seduced mathematician is
>led astray by an alluring poet.

Based on that sentence, my reaction is, "Wow! At least the
mathematician gets to get laid!"

On reading the review, it seems to be a fairly standard plot: future
dictatorship, individual discovers there are better things than
dictatorship to live under, and something happens - from an individual
epiphany to the oberthrow of said dictatorship.

If it weren't for the fact, noted in the review, that this novel is an
alt-history work, there would actually not be the contradiction you
noted between millenia of religious dictatorship and technology
centuries in advance of our own. Thje religious dictatorshp could
still have had a stultifying effect on the progress of science and
technology - just slowing it to a tenth of its normal speed, instead
of choking it off entirely.

But given that it _is_ alt-history, I must assume that the calendar
date of the events within is such as not to allow this resolution, but
would instead lead to the contradiction of the religious dictatorship
having to also had _accelerated_ scientific and technological
progress.

I followed the link to the review of the author's other novel that you
reviewed. He didn't find manipulative cads charming? Perhaps Joanna
Russ would have given this book a better review. Well, slightly
better.

John Savard