The Fifth Man (novel) - Literary Significance & Criticism

Literary Significance & Criticism

The Fifth Man continues the trend in Christian fiction away from the preachy, tract-like novels of the 1990s and toward novels with "crossover appeal"--that is, novels that a non-Christian might appreciate nearly as well as does a Christian. Christian science fiction is very rare, primarily because of the inherent restrictions that apply to a Christian novel—in this case, that such a novel may not create a character or a situation for which the Bible holds no warrant. Thus, while the title of this work strongly suggests an extraterrestrial visitor as an agent that assaults the astronauts (and ultimately murders one of them), some Christians find it impossible accept such a concept. Thus the agent of the mayhem that plagues and pursues the astronauts must be a human agent. The realization of this fact has led some readers to criticize The Fifth Man severely, accusing the authors of the literary equivalent of bait-and-switch.

Yet a close read of this novel and its prequel Oxygen clearly shows that the same character responsible for killing Astronaut Hampton and almost killing the rest of the crew, was also responsible for the failed "lifeboat" mission in the earlier novel. More to the point, however, a Fifth Man does exist on Mars. The surviving astronauts see him very briefly before they make their hurried take-off. They do not recognize him, but anyone who has read the third chapter of the Biblical book of Daniel probably will. Thus the Fifth Man is extraterrestrial, after all—but not in the usual sense in modern popular culture.