Sweet! I did end up reading the whole book with my group, including Omphalos and the rest. The story is reminiscent of a Black Mirror episode, "The Entire History of You", at least in subject matter. Might be worth throwing that in there too. Slick №., by the way.
What'd you think of Omphalos? The utterly fascinating bit for me is that the last prayer outlines basically the same mental shift I had to do, and coincidentally the scientific push for me to do that was also learning a bit of astronomy. I feel like that shift could have been better foreshadowed, though; I feel like it was wanting to be a twist of an ending, and in my opinion such an ending should lend a new perspective on a re-reading of the story. I'm not sure this one does.
I thought the setting was a fascinating concept, but I don't come from a religious background and the crisis of faith thing was something I just don't get. For that reason it just kinda fell flat for me; it didn't seem like there was anything I could take away from the story
Understandably so. The setting is quite neat to me as it sorts out a few of the more tricky questions YEC has to answer but yet manages to still draw out the point that scientific facts are only as good as our interpretation of the evidence can be. Are there things you do have faith in?