I liked this book. It’s interesting and somewhat rare in sci-fi to have an author consider religious apologetical reasoning when taking about extra terrestrial life. I did find the ending disappointing.

Not sure how I feel about this one. It’s the epitome of great ideas and so-so execution. The first third of the book is one of best i’ve ever read in sci-fi and I wish Blish followed through with that instead of sort of meandering through the muddled last 2/3 of it.

The ending is way too literal for my tastes—it really feels like the publishers forced him to drag out what would’ve been up there with the sci-fi short story greats.

(3.5) but i’ll round up bc he went to Rutgers

Elevated diction and dabbling in theology does not a novel make

I can't rate this because I didn't finish it. The original novella was perfect, and it didn't need another half added on.

Cape San Blas vacation

In short: The first half of the book (which was originally published as a novella in 1953) is brilliant science-fiction—the work of a true Grandmaster. The second half...not so much. The ending is ambiguous to a fault and felt rushed, as if Blish lost control of the themes he was trying to develop and settled for wrapping everything up quickly.

50 years later is it relevant? Yes and is a worthy read among Hugo winners. Mainly due to it's rare marriage of Catholic theology and the dilemma of discovering faithless alien life. The sociological themes were a mess of Cold War fanaticism and 1950's Mad Men style male dominance.

The first part of A Case of Conscience was excellent. It flowed great, there were some great questions pondered, and I really enjoyed it. Until the second part of the story came along. It felt added on and if I remember correctly, the first part was a short story and the second part was added to create the novel. If I was to rate the first part, it would be four stars but that second half was so messy, totally added for word count. It just really sucks because this book had so much potential.

great book, although ending I thought wasn't quite as good as I had hoped...

This was disappointing and it lost my interest after the first third. The world building was rather dull, the characters were dry and it ended on a cliffhanger that I'm not going to follow up. It's unfortunate, because the concept of planet without "original sin" should have been an interesting story.