JAMES BLISH – Faust Aleph-Null. Serialized in If Science Fiction, August-October 1967. Reprinted as Black Easter or Faust Aleph-Null (Doubleday, hardcover, 1968; Dell, paperback, 1969). Also reprinted as The Devil’s Day, paired with the novel The Day After Judgment (Baen, paperback, 1990).

   Outwardly fantasy, this story is actually a treatise on theology, leading up to the no longer startling conclusion that “God is dead.”

   Some time in the past, God is presumed to have made a compromise with the demons of Evil, in the form of the Covenant, which also allows the practice of Magic. The monastery at Monte Albano, the center of white magic, discovers that the black magician Theron Ware is about to perform a potentially disastrous task for a munitions manufacturer, and so the move to stop it, but without actually interfering.

   The Task? To allow the major demons of Hell freedom on Earth for 24 hours, purely as an experiment. This does not speak wll of munitions manufacturers, of course, but as a class, who else could Blish reasonably pick on? Not acceptable, even given the existence of such demons.

   Naturally the experiment goes out of control, with God’s absence from the scene the factor allowing the demons to stay free, breaking the vows that gave then freedom. End of story.

   More work is needed to make this tale credible as a story; as theology, it may be great stuff.

Rating: ***½

— December 1968.