Antingen en novell eller roman där människor plockar upp en vacker ljudande alien broadcast som beskrivs som en sång av något slag. De skickar en man (en präst av något slag tror jag) för att träffa utlänningar och det visar sig att sändningen verkligen är sadistisk alienpornografi. De torterar också killen genom att skära köttet mellan sina metakarpalben så att han inte kan föda sig.
Jag svär på bokens namn eller historia hade något att göra med fågel sång eftersom det är vad människorna först jämför sändningen till.
Detta är Sparrow (1996) av Mary Doria Russell.
In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet that will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question what it means to be "human".
Från Wikipedias detaljerade sammanfattande sammanfattning :
Sandoz becomes a slave/pet of a famed poet-songwriter, whose broadcasts first alerted Earth to Rakhat's existence. Sandoz is physically disfigured. [...] The flesh between Sandoz's metacarpal bones is cut away to make it seem that he has long elegant fingers like the hasta'akala plant (which grows on a stronger tree and is thus dependent). The disfiguration starts at Sandoz' wrists, and with which he cannot even feed himself. [...] It is later revealed the songs which Sandoz had originally considered to be a divine revelation are in fact a kind of ballad pornography celebrating rape, relating the songwriter's sexual exploits on broadcast to the populace.
Titeln refererar inte till en fågel sång, men en bibelvers: "Är inte två musmor sålda för ett öre? Ändå kommer ingen av dem att falla till marken förutom din Faders vilja. Och till och med hårets huvud är alla numrerade. Så var inte rädd; du är värd mer än många sparv "(Matteus 10: 29-31) Hänvisar till hur Sandoz kände att han fick falla och därigenom förlorade han sin tro på Gud.
Utdrag från Sparrowen :
“There's an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everywhere and everything, a totality. But to make creation, God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist. So He breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, there creation exists."
So God just leaves?"
No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering."
Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine: Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it."
But the sparrow still falls.
Later on, Sandoz speaks this to the Cardinals:
“That is my dilemma. Because if I was led by God to love God, step by step, as it seemed, if I accept that the beauty and the rapture were real and true, the rest of it was God’s will too, and that, gentlemen, is cause for bitterness. But if I am simply a deluded ape who took a lot of old folktales far too seriously, then I brought all this on myself and my companions and the whole business becomes farcical, doesn’t it. The problem with atheism, I find, under these circumstances...is that I have no one to despise but myself. If, however, I choose to believe that God is vicious, then at least I have the solace of hating God.”
Läs andra frågor om taggar story-identification short-stories novel Kärlek och kompatibilitet Skor Gear 12 Stjärntecken Grunderna