Sarah K. Balstrup

I hate that I even have to make this post. Another book is about to be eliminated from an indie competition I love (SFINCS) because the judges admit to being incapable of tolerating a sci-fi story that features religious characters who aren't caricatures. The reviewer praised the book's prose and plotting, then spent the rest of the review announcing her personal aversion to religion, which, apparently renders her incapable of judging a story on its merits. Nevermind the fact that the book is about the dangers of messianic fanaticism (wasn't there a beloved sci-fi classic that did that?) or that the "religion" in question is never specified. Nevermind that there isn't so much as a whiff of proselytizing in it. The mere presence of religious characters who don't *announce on the page that they are stand-ins for criticism of religion as an institution* was enough to give this reviewer a case of the ickies.