Has anyone read 'Mission' by Patrick Tilley?

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Has anyone read Mission (http://www.patrick-tilley.com/mission/index.php) by Patrick Tilley?

I first read this novel only a couple of years after it was first published. I have also read his novel Fade Out (original version). Mission probably has one of the cleverest endings that I know in modern literature.

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I can't believe no one has read this novel. :confused:

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I can't believe no one has read this novel. :confused:
Don't believe it. I have.

I don't remember the ending much (it was a long time ago) but I really enjoyed the book and recommended it widely. Essentially it was science-fiction premised on a Gnostic cosmology, and against this background was set a cracking, well-written thriller whose protagonist was none other than that well-loved hero of fiction, J.H. Christ. Nowadays these SF/fantasy/religion/space-cadet-philosophy mash-ups are all over TV and the internet and even Hollywood, but Tilley's book was published in 1981, so you could say he was something of a pioneer in that line.

He may have been a little too intellectual for the great unwashed, though. Which is why the book has only nineteen reviews on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Mission-Patrick-Tilley/dp/0316845426/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260026589&sr=8-1), but its star rating is 4 1/2.

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Don't believe it. I have.

Thank the holy Flying Spaghetti Monster for that!


I don't remember the ending much (it was a long time ago) but I really enjoyed the book and recommended it widely.

Well, without wanting to give the ending away to the uninitiated, I was referring specifically to all of the documents right at the end of the book.


Essentially it was science-fiction premised on a Gnostic cosmology, and against this background was set a cracking, well-written thriller whose protagonist was none other than that well-loved hero of fiction, J.H. Christ. Nowadays these SF/fantasy/religion/space-cadet-philosophy mash-ups are all over TV and the internet and even Hollywood, but Tilley's book was published in 1981, so you could say he was something of a pioneer in that line.

I couldn't have put that better myself! Plus it was hilariously funny at times.


He may have been a little too intellectual for the great unwashed, though.

Yes, almost certainly. Why does the world need writers like Patrick Tilley, Umberto Eco, Robert Anton Wilson & Ursula K. LeGuin when it has the likes of Dan Brown, Barbara Cartland & Jeffrey Archer? :eek: