Michener has created a villain, a charming, satanic fraud who calls himself Strabismus and makes his living first by milking the 'flying saucer' racket and then by making himself into a Bible-thumping evangelist who attacks science in general and evolution in particular.įor what Michener is portraying in this novel is America today. Space contrasts several varieties of faith, from the simplistic faith of the German rocket engineer who believes that technology can solve any problem, to the faith of the astronauts who believe that flying farther and faster is the greatest good in the world.Īnd then there is the cynical, corrosive manipulation of faith by those who prey on the fears of the public for their own selfish ends. Michener has also hit on that theme, expanded on it, deepened it. But I recall that one of the characters in that naive novel said that the world is divided into two kinds of people, those who have faith in space flight and those who don't.

Like most first novels, it was never published, and a good thing it wasn't. This is a novel about faith, religious faith, even though it is not a novel about religion.īack when I was a teenager I wrote a science fiction novel about the first voyage to the moon.

For what Michener is really writing about is something far deeper. In typical Michener fashion, the novel examines every aspect of its subject: the men who build and fly the rockets, the women who marry them, the scientists, the politicians, the journalists, the astronauts.īut that is only on the surface. Michener's latest epic novel is the story of the American space program, from its roots in World War II to the magnificent Voyager 2 probe of the ringed planet Saturn.

Space by James A. Michener