HIM

by Geoff Ryman

“Women, of course, can not be sons of God.” In Nazareth, the virgin Maryam gives birth to a baby girl. Named Avigayil, for her grandmother, she is an unusual child: alert, quiet, attentive, her first words a polite rebuke. At five years old, the child declares that he is a boy and demands to be called Yehushua. This boy, and soon man, can work miracles and speak for God. I can imagine the kinds of readers who would call for the book to be burned, but I found it to be deeply, and movingly, reverent. I am also struck by its shelving as science fiction, and what kinds of questions that raises: what is the boundary between fiction and religious text? In what ways are all religious texts a kind of fiction, and all fiction a kind of gospel?

Publisher
Angry Robot
Year
2023
Collection
Fiction
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Selected essays

Writing essays & notes

  1. An addiction

    On To Write Like a Woman and Why We Fear AI

  2. In the world

    In memory of Nevan Scott, 1985–2026

  3. There and here

    On Always Coming Home and Orality and Literacy

  4. The open universe

    On The Language of the Night and The Real World of Technology

Reading books

  1. Lavinia

    by Ursula K. Le Guin

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