'A running question of what defines humanity was cleverly developed throughout the season.'

Science fiction author Philip Purser-Hallard looks at faith in an increasingly futuristic world

As I write this column it’s August. Summer might begin (following our earlier, unseasonal monsoons), and isn’t long until the Greenbelt Festival… and, in the best tradition of summer journalism, my column for this month consists of ‘Top 5’ lists.

The Top 5 Science Fiction Moments in the Bible

1. Genesis 3. The archetypal Frankenstein story, with a creator’s prototypes turning against him. There are things mankind was never meant to know…

2. Genesis 6-8. Noah successfully preserves Earth’s biodiversity after an increasingly relevant-looking apocalypse.

3. 2 Kings 2:8-12. The earliest recorded alien abduction, as Elijah gets taken up to heaven in a so-called ‘fiery chariot’.

4. Luke 9:28-36. Elijah’s abductors apparently consider taking Jesus too, but think better of it.

5. Revelation 8:6-12. It may be heralded by angelic trumpets, but it’s clearly an asteroid impact followed by a nuclear winter. It’s in the Bible, so it must be true.

The Top 5 Religious Doctor Who Stories

1. Father’s Day (2005). An ordinary man must sacrifice himself to save humanity. From demons. In a church.

2. Human Nature / The Family of Blood (2007). The Doctor’s own incarnation and sacrifice. Read the original novel here.

3. Castrovalva (1982). Abandoning his black goatee for white robes and a flowing beard, the Master builds a paradise and peoples it with his creations. That should end well.

4. The Curse of Fenric (1989). It’s 1943, and vampires are attacking an English village. Faith repels them, but the vicar lost his when the first British bombs fell. Can a Russian soldier’s belief in the revolution save the day?

5. The TV movie (1996). The Doctor rises from the dead, then wanders around in a sheet before being crucified. Which doesn’t seem quite right.

The Top 5 Science Fiction Popes

1. Urban XVI (Endymion and The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons). Formerly Julius XIV, Urban is eternally resurrected thanks to a cruciform alien parasite, receiving a new papal name on each rebirth.

2. Hadrian VIII (A Case of Conscience by James Blish). When a priest tells His Holiness that he’s discovered a planet created by the Devil, Hadrian tells him not to be such a heretic, and to go back and exorcise it.

3. Sixtus VII (‘Good News from the Vatican’ by Robert Silverberg). ‘Every era gets the Pope it deserves,’ a bishop observes on the day the cardinals elect a robot to St Peter’s seat.

4. John XIV (The Alteration by Kingsley Amis). A Yorkshire Pope in a Reformation-free alternative history, John is the distant successor to Germanian I, also known as Martin Luther.

5. Pius XX (3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke). Revered throughout the solar system’s secular utopia, ‘Impius’ was apparently to the Catholic Church what Mikhail Gorbachev was to the Soviet Union.

5 (Not Even the Top 5) Living Authors of Children’s Fantasy Who Are Better than JK Rowling

1. Ursula le Guin. The Earthsea books.

2. Terry Pratchett. The Wee Free Men books (a subset of his Discworld series).

3. Philip Pullman. The His Dark Materials trilogy.

4. William Nicholson. The Wind on Fire trilogy.

5. Diana Wynne Jones. The Chrestomanci books and numerous others.

The Top 5 Science Fiction Religions

1. Scientology. The only SF religion to take off in reality. Late SF author L Ron Hubbard’s solution to the Problem of Evil involves hydrogen bombs, volcanoes and Xenu, evil ruler of the Galactic Confederation. Allegedly.

2. Jedi. In Star Wars, a kind of pantheist universalism. In the real world, not so much a religion as a way of annoying census-takers.

3. Bokononism. Avowedly false religion in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, whose sacred text begins ‘All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.’

4. The First Reformed Church of Tipler, Astrophysicist.
In Charles Stross’s Accelerando, this church runs jumble sales and keeps its notice-boards tidy while awaiting the universe’s computer-driven Omega Point.

5. The Church of the Second Coming of the Great Prophet Zarquon. The cult is very briefly vindicated in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker trilogy, when their messiah appears at the End of the Universe and asks, ‘Er, how are we for time?’

• Read Philip Purser-Hallard's blog

Earlier articles

• It’s been unreal
• Santa Claus conquers the Martians
• Getting needlessly messianic
• Through An Orbital Mirror, Darkly
• The Shape of Kingdoms to Come
• Back to reality
• I baptised an alien
• Follow the Master