The gospel from outer space [Paperback]

Robert L Short (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Harper & Row; 1st edition (1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060673761
• ISBN-13: 978-0060673765
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,020,449 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Phone Home, March 24, 2006

By 

Gord Wilson "alivingdog.com" (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Gospel from Outer Space (A Fount Original) (Paperback)

Robert Short is best known for his delightful best seller, The Gospel According to Peanuts. Like that book, this one began life as a series of audio-visual presentations on a popular subject. This one came in the wake of sci-fi films that asked or intimated the big questions, including E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

It wasn't originally a Fount Original, that being a British imprint picked up when Harper and Collins merged, and I can't be sure this edition is as richly illustrated as the Harper version I read. But that book was a visual feast, drenched with movie stills and sci-fi related ephemera, along with witty and profound reflection on what it all can possibly mean.

Obviously readers need not share the predilections of an able and literate commentator to enjoy his or her presentation. This book belongs to the realm of civil discourse (a disappearing tradition) and will engage all sci-fi fans as well as those interested in the relations between art, life and popular culture. Whether or not you fall in with Short's views, he presents a thoughtful exploration into what C.S. Lewis called "sensucht" or cosmic homesickness, and why we all, like E.T., want to phone home.