In the following excerpt, Born considers that Clarke's characterization of the Jesuit astrophysicist in "The Star" renders the story superior to most antireligious science fiction.

[Two] stories serve as good examples of how Christianity is tested in a science fiction future and found to be wanting. However, in these stories, Harry Harrison's "The Streets of Ashkelon" and Clarke's "The Star," the anti-Christian rhetoric assumes more power in part because the men of faith have ceased to appear as ridiculous primitives. In Clarke's story, by far the most devastating in terms of casting doubt on Christianity's credibility, the priest is actually portrayed in a sympathetic light. Also, while the real purpose of the first three stories already examined is a glorification of scientific culture— to which the Christian merely serves as a foil— the attention of Harrison's and Clarke's stories is solidly upon the men of...