Only Begotten Daughter is a 1990 fantasy novel written by James Morrow, setting the stage for his later Godhead Trilogy. The book shared the 1991 World Fantasy Award with Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer. It was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1990, and both the Locus and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards in 1991.
The story is about Julie Katz, the Messiah who is the daughter of God, who is spontaneously conceived from a spe...
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Only Begotten Daughter is a 1990 fantasy novel written by James Morrow, setting the stage for his later Godhead Trilogy. The book shared the 1991 World Fantasy Award with Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer. It was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1990, and both the Locus and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards in 1991.
The story is about Julie Katz, the Messiah who is the daughter of God, who is spontaneously conceived from a sperm bank donation through what Morrow terms inverse parthenogenesis. Julie struggles with her messianic powers, the mind games of Satan, being hunted by fundamentalists, and the silence of her mother, God.
This novel is a counter-theodicy similar to the Godhead Trilogy. In addition, Only Begotten Daughter refers to God as a female throughout the entire book.
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Inverse parthenogenesis. This is a baffled scientist’s explanation for the existence of an entirely unexpected ovum in Murray Katz’ latest sperm bank donation: unexpected because, as...
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