Short Story Review Lester DEL REY FOR I Am a Jealous People
What if a priest discovered that God had abandoned humanity for an invading alien species?
SHORT SCIENCE FICTION STORY REVIEWS – LESTER DEL REY – FOR I AM A JEALOUS PEOPLE! 1954 The Mammoth Book Of Science Fiction Short Novels.
An amazing thought and soul-provoking novella with a very simple premise. What if God abandoned humanity for an alien race that had started trying to invade our World instead?
The first half of the story has a sincere Baptist preacher, Amos Strong subjected to a series of disaster’s that try his patience much in the way God and Satan put Job under fire. The World is being invaded by an alien race intent on our extermination. Despite the best efforts of the army, the invaders are winning. Strong tries to comfort his congregation, though an atheist friend taunts him with the view that the Bible makes no reference to life on other Worlds or how God might feel towards them.
Strong and his friend see several family members and friends die, which reinforces their belief systems until, escaping the aliens themselves, they find them in Strong’s Church, holding a strange tabernacle – an Ark of the Covenant. The aliens see theirs as a divinely ordained mission. Worse, Strong sees God clearly siding with the aliens assuring them he no longer protects humanity.
As human ingenuity starts a massive resistance stance, Strong vows to take the battle further, to find a way to fight even against God.
The story is filled with Old Testament references and quotations but virtually no references to Christ, who Strong’s beliefs would have been more focussed upon, but it remains a powerful unforgettable read that never gets preachy or sermonizing even when that is central to its plot. Quite an achievement.
Arthur Chappell
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