"Blue Fire"
by Robert Silverberg
Form: Novelette
Year: 1965
ID: 106
Publication history:
- 1965: Galaxy June 1965, Magazine
- 1967: To Open the Sky, Ballantine Mass market paperback, 222 pp.
- 1970: To Open the Sky, Ballantine Mass market paperback, ISBN 345-02025-1, 222 pp.
- 1984: To Open the Sky, Bantam Mass market paperback, ISBN 0-553-24502-3, 222 pp.
- 1989: To Open the Sky, Sphere Mass market paperback, ISBN 0722178271, 208 pp.
Other resources:
[None on record]
Comments:
The first part of To Open the Sky. In 2077, the Earth is a horribly crowded place, with billions of people struggling for survival. There are colonies on Mars and Venus, but space travel is too expensive for large numbers to leave the home world. In the midst of this, a new religion has sprung up, started by Noel Vorst. It is a secular religion, based more on science than the supernatural, and its symbol is the blue glow of a cobalt reactor.
This story concerns Reynolds Kirby, a non-Vorster functionary at the UN. It is his job to babysit the new Martian ambassador and secure a trade pact to prop up Earth's sluggish economy. The man from Mars is a boor who wants to see all the decadent wonders of Earth, including the strange new religion.