SPOILER ALERT IN REVIEW!!
I enjoyed this book from the first page to the last. The character development was perfect, though if there was any drawback, many of them were snuffed out too quickly, but most people don't die over 10 pages, anyways. Emilio Sandoz is a great character - the preacher who goes into one of the greatest challenges ever dealt to the human race (albeit in 2019) with complete unquestioning love of God and comes out of his first extraterrestrial experience with a very different view of the "man upstairs." Can't wait to read "Children of God" to continue with his adventures. Thank you, Ms. Russell, for this book.

Only two-thirds thru, I cannot wait to review it.

Normally I do not care for stories that jump constantly between timeframes, but in this instance, I am grateful for the relief. Starting at the far ends of the situation, the author builds to an intensity in one part of the story and then skillfully switches to the other end, usually just at the point I would have had to put the book down to take a breather from it. As it is, now I can hardly bear to put it down.

Another reviewer questioned, as I did, do I really want to expose myself to the horrors that destroyed the crew of this mission to a strange planet; I have reserved the fifth star for this review because of that, as I am still on the edge of wondering, do I go on or should I stop before I am simply to aghast to continue. The author, however, builds the suspense in such small increments, I hardly realize that I am becoming inured, and my need to know what happens next keeps drawing me farther.

I do know a couple of things about what is going to happen because I stumbled upon a couple of spoilers for this story in the review of its sequel, so anyone who really doesn't want to know more than the author intends, I suggest NOT checking out Children of God -- which I am still undecided whether to order, depending on how Sparrow unfolds.

But I am definitely adding the author to my list of favorite writers. I really do not care what genre a book is determined to be, or when or where the story takes place; the most important thing for me is character development. I have to like, or at least be able to relate to, the people in the story in order to give a darn what happens to them. I have put more than one book down halfway through it just because slogging through all those pages for people I don't care for is too big a waste of my time. No danger of that here; Russell writes people so clearly and so sympathetically that I want to meet them in real life.

I am a Protestant. If I were a Catholic, I would be highly insulted by this book. I really hope that the later part of this century doesn't find priests drinking like fish and cursing like sailors. For that matter, I hope they don't act like that now. It's not that these things are the worst imaginable sins, it's that a believer -- especially a member of the clergy -- should seek to be an example, to be holy as Christ is holy.

Although I am not a Catholic, I find the main character, Emilio Sandoz, plenty insulting enough to the Christian faith in general. To anyone, Catholic or Protestant, who has a true relationship with God, Sandoz' faith crisis isn't hard to understand: he isn't a Christian, so naturally the role of being a Christian minister chafes him in certain areas, including chastity.

Sandoz does a lot of good works. Through much of the book, before the mission to Rakhat leaves Earth, he cares for the poor. He tends to those people who many believers, Catholic and Protestant both, would walk right by and not help. Certainly, Jesus said that anyone who helps people like these really does their service to Him.

Having said that, the New Testament also makes it clear that works without faith is dead. So, Sandoz is only operating with half a loaf. What happens to the human body if you only give it half of its needed calories, day after day? Starvation eventually sets in and the person gets sick and weak. Similarly, it is no wonder that Sandoz is so spiritually undernourished -- half of his spiritual diet is missing. He has no personal relationship with God.

When Sandoz' childhood is revealed in the book, it's easy to see why he became a priest: he greatly admired the man, also a priest, who saved him from a life of crushing poverty in the slums. So, his chosen path is understandable, but wrong-headed. The priesthood is not like any other profession. You don't choose it, it choses you. And since Sandoz had no such calling, he would have been better off becoming a secular social worker. Then, at least, he could have had a wife and a family and been relatively happy.

I don't know any Jesuits, but I'd like to think that they wouldn't be so quick to judge one of their brothers before getting the full story. Sandoz is treated with suspicion, impatience and contempt when he returns to Earth before the full story comes out. The Jesuit who judges him the most seems like a cartoonish foil set up to make Sandoz look more sympathetic.

Sandoz and the rest of the crew seem like they are full of bonhomie and goodwill in their desire to reach out and know the people of Rakhat and their (seemingly) beautiful music. Actually, they are full of hubris. They do go about the mission with the puerile enthusiasm of -- as one previous poster so aptly put it -- Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland putting on a show in their backyard. Hey, kids! Let's go to Alpha Centauri!

They emphasize linguistic and musical knowledge and completely ignore the need to bring psychology and diplomacy into the mix. Considering how they upset a large portion of Rakhat society even in the first book, they would have done well even to look at DVDs of the old "Star Trek" series for guidance.

Well, folks, this group has no Prime Directive. They jump into Rakhat society with both feet and start meddling and the results turn out to be tragic.

Anyone who's read a good bit of science fiction will see the set-up between the two sentient species from a mile away. It's not hard to guess their relationship. It's also not hard to guess what happened to Sandoz while he was in prison on Rakhat.

The naivete and intellectual arrogance of the characters makes it very hard to feel sorry for them. It's like a three year-old who complains of a stomach ache after you told him not to eat all the cookies in the jar. I told you to only have one cookie, didn't I?

Of course, the Jesuits share some of the blame. They should not have let the mission go off half-cocked like that any more than a parent should stand by and let a toddler gobble down a whole plate of cookies. The Father General himself commented on how Jesuit missionaries were greeted over the centuries by indigenous people when first contacted -- and these were all humans we're talking about! Here, we are dealing with aliens. Or, rather, the people from Earth are the aliens. It's a wonder they weren't all clubbed to death the first day.

I'm not giving anything away to say that every person in the Rakhat mission, except Sandoz, dies in one way or another (or is assumed to be dead). It's clear from the opening of the book that he's the sole member to make it back to Earth. This may seem tragic for a group that, while extremely naieve, was basically harmless and well-meaning, but I don't see the deaths as tragic. In a strange way, I believe that each character, except Sandoz, whose story continues, gets their own happy ending before their death. Yarborough, another Jesuit who never should have become a priest, gets to be the patriarch of the mission's makeshift little family when he never thought, because of his vows and his homosexuality, that he would ever be a father to a family. The Edwards find new purpose and die within a short span of each other, the way they would want. The musical expert gets to hear Rakhatian music first-hand but dies before the music he cherishes is exposed as profane. The priest who has a long-standing problem with his flesh finally renounces the flesh in an altogether different way and finds redemption in that choice, even though it's a choice that leads to his death. Jimmy Quinn (the character I most despised; I wanted to read through the pages and smack him) finally marries the love of his life (although I would call Sofia the object of his relentless, stalkerish obsession) before he dies. And, finally, Sofia finds empowerment by leading a rebellion of the natives on Rakhat. In this way, she is able to rise above the victimization of her childhood and take a sense of personal control.

As I and many others have mentioned, the book drags on in places. You have to fight the urge to scream at the author, "Oh, just get on with it already!"

In the end, I can't say, despite all my frustrations with the plot, theology, dialogue, characters and pacing of the book (you know, the little things) that I didn't find the book moving. After all, the author has chosen the time-honored Shakespearian framework of killing everyone at the end.

I also applaud the author for trying to do something different. I never read Blish, so I can't say how closely she copied his plot. But, at the very least, this book tackles questions of faith and science for this present generation, and that's important in its own right. More SF should take on matters of faith. What will faith look like in the centuries to come?

I just hope that the authors who examine these questions will take the time to accurately portray the faith they are writing about. In the end, Ms. Russell really doesn't know what she's talking about.

It's been a long time since I was so completely irritated by a novel. Even for a sci-fi novel, the plot contrivances are a bit much (systems analysts who can maneuver a retrofitted asteroid without any flight experience, etc.). Notwithstanding the interesting premise, the novel is for me fatally flawed because the "test of faith" experienced by Emilio Sandoz is so outrageous, so over the top, that it overshadows any nuanced or complex discussions that can be had about the nature of faith and an individual's relationship to God. *SPOILERS AHEAD* It is not enough that Sandoz suffers the loss of his spiritual father and mother in a brutal attack at the hands of a strange race on an alien planet (which alone could be the underpinnings for his crisis of faith); the Jesuit then sees the rest of his friends murdered, manages to partake in cannibalism, is savagely raped, unwittingly consents to ritual mutilation for himself and the only other surviving crew member (who then dies), and to top it all off, mistakenly kills the alien child he had come to love like a daughter. Back at home, he suffers great emotional and physical pain, is treated as a pariah by a society that is quick to jump to judgment without having all the facts, and is subjected to a humiliating inquest at the hands of his peers. All this to support the author's contention (from the conversation at the back of the book) that "even if you do your best you can you can still get screwed." For this brilliant insight, and presumably to punish Sandoz for daring to imagine a personal relationship with his God, the author eviscerates the Sandoz character physically and mentally. The "seduced and raped by God" trope was sophomoric on a literary level, and tasteless on every other one. As for character renderings, the author Mary Sue's herself shamelessly in the smug character of Anne Edwards, and has the aforementioned super super brilliant systems analyst recoil from Sandoz because he has, in the 21st century, a goatee that reminds her of the Spanish Inquisition. Ultimately, I am most troubled by the fact that I skipped studying for the bar for this. I am hopeful I will still pass, I even have faith that I will. I suppose I will be decimated sometime soon.

I love, love, love this book. The characters grabbed a hold of my heart and I will never let them go. The pace of the book and the gradual unfolding of the story kept me turning the pages FAR longer into the night than is really good for me. (And this is the second time I've read the book - and still I can't put it down!)

The pain, the despair, the beauty of Mary Doria Russell's words - this is a work of art. Jesuit priest Emilio Sandoz is the main character of this powerful book. His journey, not only to another planet, but to a place deep in his soul that few of us will ever reach, is utterly compelling. He finds himself questioning almost every choice he's made in his life and finds his faith and very humanity tested.

"He turned to Sandoz, hoping that he'd caught the infectious, boyish spirit of getting away with something, of skipping school for a day of stolen freedom...And saw instead a desperately tired man, slumped in the seat beside him, eyes closed against a jarring, exhausting journey through the city, against new pain layered over scurvy's constant hemorrhagic ache and a damnable bone-deep weariness that rest could not remedy."

The reader knows that Earth's first journey to another planet ended in disaster, but not the details of the horrors that Sandoz has endured. We see his pain through the eyes of other priests as he fights to heal his body and soul, and as he is caught between doubting and cursing himself and doubting and cursing the God that he's devoted his life to.

The book is filled with magic and joy as well. The delight that the first Earthlings experience as they land on a new planet - see sights ungazed on by human eyes. Become pioneers in a way that few people could ever imagine.

"...Emilio Sandoz fell hardest of all, letting his fear and doubt go almost physically, his hands opening as everyone else clutched at controls or straps or armrests or someone else's hand. ...it seemed only natural that he should move into the airlock and open the hatch and step out alone, into the sunlight of starts he'd never noticed while on Earth, and fill his lungs with the exhalation of unknown plants and fall to his knees weeping with the joy of it when, after a long courtship, he felt the void fill and believed with all his heart that his love affair with God had been consummated."

"Those who saw his face as he pushed himself to his feet, laughing and crying, and turned back to them, incandescent, arms flung wide, recognized that they stood witness to a soul's transcendence and would remember that moment for the rest of their lives."

I simply cannot express clearly enough my admiration for what Russell has created here. She writes with such humanity, such poetry, such clarity. Somehow she straddles the very thin line between flowery and evocative writing - and this balancing act is a beauty to behold. This book and To Kill a Mockingbird will constantly be battling it out in my heart for the title of My Favorite Book.

Speaking of creation - I will end with Russell's moving description of the beginning of life:

"Later that summer, as rain fell, such a moment shimmered and paused on the brink, and then began the ancient dance of numbers: two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and a new life took root and began to grow. And thus the generations past were joined to the unknowable future."

The Sparrow tells the story of a group of people who are sent to explore a new planet and get to know the people and culture there. At the beginning you already know that something went wrong in the mission, as you are introduced to the sole survivor - a priest who is beat up and broken. The chapters that unfold the wonder found in discovering and venturing a new planet are juxtaposed against the priest's processing and sharing (or lack of sharing) the tragedy that occurred on the planet. And yet even as it is tragic, it is also hopeful.

Although it is a very good story, it is also a difficult story - the events that happen on the planet are disturbing. They describe a culture that uses another culture/race to meet their own desires and needs. And the book questions the assumptions we make about what is appropriate and reasonable. In their interactions with the other cultures, they naturally makes mistakes - things they did even with the best intentions - and being as careful and sensitive of the other cultures as possible.

It does a very good job of discussing how God reveals himself, how people relate to God (and the spiritual) and what can happen when one's expectations of God are completely demolished. It is the story of a slow healing and a growing awareness that there is no simplistic way that one can see God's working in the lives of people.

Theology can become a distant logical exercise of dry doctrine and easy theoretical conclusions. When it comes down to the wet choices of real life most such theoretical Theology is found wanting as it can offer only limited answers. This is Theology of the other kind, the real one.

Mary Doria Russell has created a highly intelligent story: what would the story of a future saint be? Say, a Jesuit spearheading an exploratory mission to an alien civilization as a linguist of unique abilities; a former outcast that found his true calling as a man of the Cloth and God's face in all the hungry he fed and all the orphans he sheltered and all the lost he bough back from desperation. And then God asked for more. Much more. Is God real or a mere human construct? Can Faith survive anything?

This is one of those books that stays with you for ever. Read THE SPARROW first, CHILDREN OF THE GOD later in order to enjoy them both more.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

I read this marvelous book awhile ago, and when I went online to buy it for a friend decided I needed to just say that it is one of my favorite books of all time. Images of the alien life were so vivid I felt as if I knew the singing creatures - or at least wanted to.

This book is truly a must-read, even if you don't consider yourself a fan of sci-fi. The character development and creation of an alien species and society is brilliant. I recommend it frequently and have given away many copies of this book and also "A Thread of Grace".

Summary: After intercepting alien radio waves, Jesuit scientists are sent to the planet Rakhat on an anthropological mission of contact. They travel on an outfitted asteroid and arrive many years later. While learning about the sentient species and their cultures, things go terribly wrong. Emilio Sandoz is the only survivor of the mission, and he doesn't want to explain why.

It's an interesting, easy, disturbing read. The friendships that are formed by the main characters make the reader long for similar companionship in life. The priests are shown as real people with real struggles (though perhaps a little too much so).

The most weighty questions addressed are the existence, goodness, and plan of an omnipotent and compassionate God. Is everything that happens the plan of God? Fr. Sandoz, after much doubt and wrestling, comes to believes this. And as he comes into the culmination of God's plan, he is spiritually broken when it turns out to be his worst possible nightmare.

Anne, the doctor, also struggles with the age-old question of theodicy. For example, after a teammate dies, she says:

"Why is it that God gets all the credit for all the good stuff, but it's the doctor's fault when [death] happens? When the patient comes through, it's always `Thank God,' and when the patient dies, it's always blaming the doctor. Just once in my life, just for the sheer ... novelty of it, it would be nice if somebody blamed God when the patient dies, instead of me." (198)

I'd cautiously recommend this book. The vulgarity can get annoying and feel forced, but the book is challenging and perspective changing. It made me wrestle through theodicy along with the characters. If there is a loving God, why is there so much suffering? "Perhaps we can't understand the answers," says Fr. Marc Robichaus in his eulogy for Alan Pace,

"because we are incapable of knowing God's ways and God's thoughts. We are, after all, only very clever tailless primates, doing the best we can, but limited. Perhaps we must all own up to being agnostic, unable to know the unknowable." (201)

And yet, we press on.

Josh Sowin
fireandknowledge.org

I wonder if the author supposed that by sending the Catholic Church into Outer Space, she could get with gimmick what good writing could not supply. Unfortunately for the reader, the best Ms. Russell can do is titillate her audience with the rape of a priest by an alien. I would call the story diabolical, but the Devil probably has some wit.

I had to read it for a religion class, but it might be made into a movie staring Brad Pitt. A great story about what God actually is.

Of the 100 or so books I read in 2007, this is the one which affected me most. Thought-provoking and gripping, I still find myself thinking about the questions it raises.

It's a terrific book, on many levels. An engrossing story, engaging characters, fascinating premise - I was riveted throughout. It's impossible to categorize this book - classifying it as science fiction (it's about an exploratory mission to a newly discovered planet in the Alpha Centauri star system) doesn't begin to do it justice. It also addresses deep questions about faith, relationships and human resilience.

The author alternates skillfully between the book's present (2059) and flashbacks to the planning and execution of the mission, building suspense to the devastating climax. (Warning: the ending is fairly grim.)
Other aspects are less successful. In particular the various members of the mission crew are presented as incredibly accomplished and unbelievably charming, and are made to act as mouthpieces for the kind of deep, meaningful conversations that sound completely forced and unnatural. I must confess that I didn't find them nearly as witty and charming as the author obviously seems to think they are. The kindly, infinitely wise, witty doctor/den mother figure was particularly hard to stomach. One could also take issue with certain aspects of the plot - for instance, the uncanny similarity of the alien society to that on earth, but this didn't bother me as much as the artificial nature of some of the main characters.

So, an ambitious and thought-provoking book, which doesn't succeed at every level. Despite its minor flaws I still give it 5 stars. It will be interesting to see what Brad Pitt makes of the film version.

A first encounter with intelligent aliens is one of the primary themes of classic science fiction. Will they be good or evil? Will they be friendly or hostile? How will they be like us? How different?

The Sparrow doesn't address these questions so much as use the story of a trip to a planet orbiting the nearest star as backdrop for exploring personal ethical questions, such as the existence of evil in a god-created universe. The Sparrow's aliens are pretty much like us humans, albeit humans living in tribes or the cities of a rather primitive civilization that has somehow developed nineteenth century technologies.

The strength of this book is in its originality. I found The Sparrow an enjoyable read, not particularly as science fiction then, but for the story.

What works:

· First, the anthropological approach that the author used. But it is as if she is describing some very primitive (in some respects) tribes rather than civilization(s). I liked the concept that the sense of smell was much more important to the aliens than it is to us, so they reacted to coffee and spices much differently.

· Second, the language issues and problems that the author brings up, and the tragic misunderstandings that can occur.

· Third, the descriptions of the two intelligent species on Alpha Centauri, and the physical evolution of the carnivores based on the characteristics of their prey were quite good.

· Finally, I liked the interplay between the characters (to some extent), it got redundant after a while, though. Her idea seemed to be to get them all together for pizza and have them make wise cracks or jokes. This happened too often.

What I didn't care for was some of the science fiction and most of the religious aspects.

The Sparrow doesn't fit the science fiction genre, unless it is science fiction from the twenties or thirties. That's the only time you'd find all of the fortuitous events that lead a group of friendly, bantering adventurers off on some far-fetched expedition that would in reality most surely be done by government or corporate interests. I'm thinking of the old Edgar Rice Burroughs or Arthur Conan Doyle type science fiction popular in the thirties.

What doesn't quite work:

Modern science fiction worlds must have credibility; even when you are presenting phenomenal events, you must make things believable. Some problems of credibility I picked up on in The Sparrow were:

· The descriptions of the red dwarf star Alpha Centauri C (or Proxima) are wrong. The star is so small and so far away (½ light year), that it would appear as just another faint red star in the night sky to the people on the planet. You wouldn't have them saying," Wait until the red sun rises, etc."

· The asteroid driven by a mass driver to get up to speed approaching lightspeed would take too much energy, even for an economy 13 years ahead of ours. I don't know how to do the calculation, since the author doesn't provide the mass of the asteroid they use, but I'm confident all the energy currently in use in the world woudn't be enough to move an asteroid up to approach light speed using a mass driver, as the author postulates.

· The society of the Alpha Centauri carnivores is static, sort of a tribal kingship system, yet somehow they have developed their technology to such an extent that they have powerful radios. So the technology has advanced quite a bit, but the social system hasn't advanced much at all. This doesn't make much sense.

The second, more fundamental problem I had was with the religious aspects of the book. I am not religious myself, but am familiar with the issues. The author, on the other hand, doesn't seem to know much about Christianity, the Jesuits, or Catholicism. I read somewhere that she got her information about religious people only from reading books by priests who left their vocations, and it shows.

· It didn't make any sense to me that a group of Jesuits would land on a planet with sentient life and never wonder if the inhabitants had souls, and if they had souls, were they subject to original sin? For religious people, this would be a much larger issue than Sandoz's big struggle with his faith, which the author makes out as the point of the book (more below). For religious people, this would be the first issue to be addressed, but it is never addressed, as far as I know (I stopped about halfway through the second book, Children of God).

· Why didn't the Jesuits try to convert the aliens to Christianity? They never even get around to the issue of God until 140 pages into the second book. But that is what the Jesuits are all about; they are "soldiers of Christ."

· I found it odd that what happens to Sandoz makes him question his faith. He apparently has no knowledge of 2000 years of martyrs that preceeded him in the Christian faith. He's unaware of that old lions and christians in the coliseum thing. You would think that, as a Jesuit, with all the history of Jesuits being tortured or killed, (for example, by the native Americans after the Jesuits arrived in North America), you would think that he would know all this and realize as a Jesuit that such could well happen to him, especially upon arriving on a new world with a strange civilization. But he is shocked to his core that God would allow horrible things to happen to him, even though God allowed them to happen to so many of his predecessors.

The appeal of the book is its fresh approach to the old scientific question of alien civilizations, but the fresh approach is also the cause of some of the books problems.

In this book a Catholic priest gets anally raped by Space Monkeys! It is worth buying for that scene alone! I heard Brad Pitt is supposed to play the priest in an upcoming movie adaptation. I am sure the role will be a "Stretch" for him! LOL

I just finished Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" series, and especially fell in love with "Speaker for the Dead" for it's anthropological questions (I grew up in rural Alaska, and quite a few memebers of my family are ethnographers and anthropologists), however, I got a bit tired of Card's right-wing pandering during his "Shadow" series, so I was delighted to turn my attention to another author, who's views on society and religion were a bit more exloritory.

The result? A very good, but also flawed book. Most of the ideas, characters, and dialog are wonderful, but the pacing and writing fall a bit short, with some very clumsy transitions. The author argues that switching between two timelines helps drive the reader forward, and while I know that can be the case, it's execution in this book is akward and frusterating, every chapter a cliffhanger whose outcome is postponed 20 more pages, until you cease to care about it so much. The result becomes predictable and jarringly anti-climactic, instead of the driving-nature the author had originally intended.

Overall, the characters are wonderfully written. Anne's character is especially wonderful, and reminds me quite-a-bit of family friends and relatives. The main character is maybe a little TOO perfect, but everyone in this book is pretty likeable

The religion will probably turn off fundimentalists of any faith. It's obvious, from the outset, that practically every character in this book is a liberal, free-thinker. Interestingly, it's not too far off base from the origin of Jesuit missionaries, who practically started the modern field of anthropology, caring less about spreading their faith, as learning about the cultures of others. However, it may confuse and upset many fundimentalists to see such a liberal-minded view of Christianity being so prevolent. There's a very European and South-American view of Christianity going on here, without so much emphasis on emperialism or evangelism that we see in modern American churches, it may come as a bit of a culture shock to some.

The writing is good, but it becomes fairly obvious that this is the novelist's first outting, and there isn't the honed structure that a more seasoned writter would have. It's a very ambitious work, and incredibly well done for a first novel. Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead" is probably a bit more inspiring for this type of work, and better-written, overall... and he's able to be a bit more open-minded, theologically, than he has become in his later works, so they are comparable. But "The Sparrow" is definitely a must for those of us who are interested in the philosophical questions surrounding anthropology.

. . . it is about the nature of belief and the search for something to believe in. If you expect to read an homage to God or a spiritual tome, don't read this book. The Sparrow is about someone who wants to love God, but doesn't, is mad at God and is examining himself and his beliefs. The Sparrow will grab you and take you on an emotional journey. The characters are so compelling, especially Sanchez and Sonia, that their search for something to believe in creates a beautiful journey of discovery.

And be sure to have the sequel, Children of God, handy to jump right into. I debated giving this book 4 stars because the sequel is the better of the two. But had I written this review before reading the next, I would have given it 5 stars. And maybe Children of God seems better because you are already so familiar with the story and the characters, that the events reverbate and are so much more engaging that they almost seem personal.

From my review of Children of God, that also applies to The Sparrow:

In Children of God, Russell follows the characters introduced in The Sparrow. We find out what happened to them and follow some of them into the new story. I won't say too much about the plot because I don't want to risk any spoilers. The surprises and many unexpected turn of events are some of the best parts in these stories. Some reviewers were shocked by the graphic descriptions of pain and suffering. But this is what makes the story so compelling. Russell writes so well that you feel one with the characters, you feel his or her suffering, and you are in pain along with them. But there is also redemption and closure and you don't leave them unhappy.

I fell in love with Russell's writing from the very beginning of The Sparrow. The story line, as it unfolds, gripped me to my soul, with it's unflinching look into the nature of belief and friendship. And the aliens, the new planet, were fascinating. In both books, Russell takes a very anthropological, rather than a science fiction, approach to alien/human experience. She never tries to present these books as science fiction - they are not. She is a doctor of anthropology and has been on a personal spiritual journey. Russell brings all of these things to her books in a way that makes us feel she is opening her soul to her readers.

Most important, these books stay with you. I could not wait to read Children of God after finishing The Sparrow. And now, several months after finishing Children of God, and having read a few more books since, it is still the story of Sanchez and the rest that stays with me, as absent friends I would like to visit with again.

. . . it is about the nature of belief and the search for something to believe in. If you expect to read an homage to God or a spiritual tome, don't read this book. The Sparrow is about someone who wants to love God, but doesn't, is mad at God and is examining himself and his beliefs. The Sparrow will grab you and take you on an emotional journey. The characters are so compelling, especially Sanchez and Sonia, that their search for something to believe in creates a beautiful journey of discovery.

And be sure to have the sequel, Children of God, handy to jump right into. I debated giving this book 4 stars because the sequel is the better of the two. But had I written this review before reading the next, I would have given it 5 stars. And maybe Children of God seems better because you are already so familiar with the story and the characters, that the events reverbate and are so much more engaging that they almost seem personal.

From my review of Children of God, that also applies to The Sparrow:

In Children of God, Russell follows the characters introduced in The Sparrow. We find out what happened to them and follow some of them into the new story. I won't say too much about the plot because I don't want to risk any spoilers. The surprises and many unexpected turn of events are some of the best parts in these stories. Some reviewers were shocked by the graphic descriptions of pain and suffering. But this is what makes the story so compelling. Russell writes so well that you feel one with the characters, you feel his or her suffering, and you are in pain along with them. But there is also redemption and closure and you don't leave them unhappy.

I fell in love with Russell's writing from the very beginning of The Sparrow. The story line, as it unfolds, gripped me to my soul, with it's unflinching look into the nature of belief and friendship. And the aliens, the new planet, were fascinating. In both books, Russell takes a very anthropological, rather than a science fiction, approach to alien/human experience. She never tries to present these books as science fiction - they are not. She is a doctor of anthropology and has been on a personal spiritual journey. Russell brings all of these things to her books in a way that makes us feel she is opening her soul to her readers.

Most important, these books stay with you. I could not wait to read Children of God after finishing The Sparrow. And now, several months after finishing Children of God, and having read a few more books since, it is still the story of Sanchez and the rest that stays with me, as absent friends I would like to visit with again.

A bad book by a mundane religiously focused writer trying to be a science fiction writer, and failing, in general. Obvious, tedious, and worse than mediocre. This sort of thing has been handled many times before to considerably better effect. The religious preaching is so overt it causes you to grit your teeth and groan.

A fascinating and wholly original imagining of first contact with extraterrestrial life. A suspense story that builds patiently, dropping tantalizing crumbs along the way. Most profoundly, a meditation on the hard questions about God's involvement in our daily affairs, and his responsibility for evil in the universe.

I'm surprised to read so much praise for Doria Russel's characters, as they are the only aspect of the novel that keeps me from giving 'The Sparrow' a five-star rating. I found secondary characters like Voelker, Anne and Supaari to be more believable and fully imagined than the protaganist Emilio Sandoz, and his cardboard attraction Sofia. That aside, this is a powerful novel you will not soon forget.

My reaction to this book was much the same as "Reader's." The book is beautifully written, and the author crafted characters about whom a reader can truly care. I was mesmerized by a tale so wonderfully and deeply original, and I could not put the book down. But as the story progressed toward its ending, it changed into something sinister -- filled with shocking images and events. A bright promise and a fantastic read turned into a tale of unimaginable savagery. It was as though two different authors had written the story. Like "Reader, "I could not wait to physically separate myself from this book. My father taught me a deep respect of the written word, but this novel sickened me so much I was actually compelled to throw this book away. My apolgies to the author, but she has the talent to do better than to taint her work with graphic horror and sadism.

A sophomoric concept hamfistedly executed, with a cast of characters you just keep hoping will die already. Not remotely good enough to take itself as seriously as it does.

I wouldn't hesitate to suggest this to anyone. It's themes are universal and it touches them all well.

An eminently readable and evocative book that, upon closer analysis, reveals multiple layers of provocative subtext. The only fault is that the ending is rather abrupt as several important subplots are hastily ended without closure.

_Sparrow_, a novel set in the near future, follows the Jesuit linguist Emilio Sandoz and his motley crew - composed of other Jesuit intellectuals, technical specialists, survival experts, and even an anthropologist - on a mission (in the style of the 16th century French and Spanish Jesuits) to investigate a planet in a nearby solar system believed to be home to alien life - and even to alien civilization.

The principle, linear narrative brings together Emilio, a gifted linguist from the slums of Puerto Rico, two married American PhDs (who have claim to, together, 120 years of 'life experience'), a young, withdrawn Jewish scientist, a fallen away Irish Catholic from Boston, and a bombastic Jesuit from Waco, Texas who refers to the Society of Jesus as 'Loyola's Unit.' In just a few terse and stylistically honed chapters, the plot carries us to the surface of the alien world of Rhakat in the nearby Alpha Centaurai system.

A secondary narrative, situated within the first - acts to build tension and to stir the reader's curiosity. In this secondary narrative, the reasons behind the failure of the mission, and the deaths of the entire crew excluding Emilio, are slowly disclosed to us as he gradually comes to terms the story and his place in it while recovering in Rome among his fellow Jesuits. This adds an interesting element to the plot - we already know the terrible outcome of the mission - so our reading of _Sparrow_ is guided more by an interest in the truth of the character's lives, experiences and eventual deaths than in the tense pathos of seeing them survive.

The characters themselves are all well developed - though I don't find any of them very likeable. Emilio is perhaps the only character in whom I take an emotional interest. The novel has a kind of campiness to it - the crew is too operatic and high-strung for my tastes - frequently sulking and leaving the dinner table because of a perceived slight. Certain devices also wear a little thin in an otherwise graceful narrative - people are almost constantly eating, laughing, or f___ing (although the sex is generally understated). Being able to appreciate humor (and to a lesser extent, sex and food) seems, in the author's mind, to be what demarcates the sympathetic characters from those who hold no real, human appeal. Laughter is everywhere in the novel - although I don't recall ever so much as chuckling at the humor - which tends to run toward the lewd and snobbish - and I often find myself laughing at the humor in books.

_Sparrow_ is mercifully short on technical explanations (unless, of course, one enjoys such things). This refusal to dwell on mundane details, however, leaves open certain logistical lacunae - the Vatican, for instance, which currently has a budget no larger than that of a large, American university, is able to equip an interstellar mission within a few weeks. Also, perhaps unintentionally (the novel was written more than a decade ago) - the author abides by a different vision of the present day (it is difficult to imagine asteroid mining and interstellar travel, in 2007, to be just around the corner).

The last third of the book is extremely hard going - I admit to nearly skipping a few pages myself. Here anthropology intersects with tragedy, as it often does in our world. The reasons for the mission's failure lie less in choices made by individuals than in those individuals themselves being caught up in the history of a culture that is immeasurably different from our own. If I've read Russell correctly - this is perhaps one of the most poignant criticisms the book has to offer - the group touches down on an alien world with much the same cheerful abandon as a middle class American on a jaunt through Africa or Latin America. Perhaps Americans could stand to learn something from the mission's mistakes. American Russell is able, nevertheless, in the remaining space, to impart a powerful message about human potential and the continuing importance of the search for God. A fine book and, with few reservations, highly recommended.

I read this book ten years ago, and I still think about it to this day. I've never been a huge fan of science fiction, but this book is so fleshed out on so many levels that even though the characters go to another planet in a spaceship and interact with aliens, I didn't think of it as sci-fi per se. It's lyrical and shocking and deep. I doubt I will ever forget it, and I'm surprised that it did not become more popular. Few writers can ever hope to achieve this level of artistry, and there's even a great sequel to follow-up with. Don't miss this one.

This book was presented to me as a Christian read. It is well written and more like an 'alien encounter' book than what most would call science fiction (they're thinking more of Star Wars or something). However, it isn't Christian literature.

The author is a lapsed Catholic, a self-described "contented atheist" who converted to judaism b/c she wanted a convenient means to pass on ethics to her son after she became a mother. Her scientific / secularist / philosophical perspective drags the religious themes down until their possible value is virtually nil. Arguably, she isn't really a Jew at all since to be Jewish you really do need to have faith in God! Having adopted a philosophy (not a belief system) where she can "decide what things to pass on and what things to weed out", she then approaches the faith of a group of Christians without any real understanding or belief in what they believe.

Over and over again, her characters suffer spiritual crises where the answer to their suffering is faith in "Jesus Christ". However, if you are an atheistic Jew, obviously you can't answer a question with "Jesus Christ" and so she doesn't. An interesting thing is that many of the crises she creates in her story are typical Jewish / athiest conundrums (an over-investment in worldly success b/c you think that God will reward you here and now instead of the hereafter cf. the story of Job in the OT) that Christian theology has moved past.

Essentially, the characters in the book should all be Rabbis - not Jesuits. All the Jesuits have the faith structure of Jews, not Christians. This is a reflection of the author's limitations as a person, and her laziness in not bothering to find out in what Christians believe and in whom they live and move and have their spiritual being - Jesus Christ.

I'd recommend this book to Jewish friends (but not the faithful ones) and athiests. I'd never recommend it as Christian literature, because it is not. Russell is just another post-modern secularist who believes that God needs to conform to her standards (so she can pick and choose the values she wants to pass on to children - note that she's in control, not God) and her writing reflects this.

Another hilarious quote by the author in response to the question "What's the moral of this story?" Her answer is 'Maybe it's "even if the do the best you can, you still get screwed." Woody Allen would find this hilarious, it's right up his alley! She then goes on to reveal what happens when your ideas of religion don't have faith, but are really just 'a philosophy'. "In our world, if people believe at all, they believe that God is love, God is hearts and flowers, and that god will send you theological candy all the time. But if you read Torah, you realize that God has a lot to answer for." Dangling prepositions aside, Russell's total lack of comprehension of faith is clearly revealed here. Since she's joined a "Torah debating academy" and doesn't actually believe in God, or have faith in God, or a real, living relationship with God, she assumes that no one else does either. The childish ideas of God she learned about as a young Catholic who abandoned her religion when she was 15 are clearly evidenced here, as she shows how little she understands religion, Christianity or even Judaism (assuming that you are a faithful Jew, and not an atheist masquerading as a Jew).

The odd thing is I know someone who is exactly like her - spiritually stunted, a lapsed catholic atheist without faith or belief in God, or a relationship with God, yet was made a jew by a reformed congregation. How they let her in, I don't know, but perhaps reformed Judaism will take people who are unbelievers as long as they seem interested? You'd think they'd have some minimum belief level before they let you join and claim their faith. Then again, a lot of conservative and orthodox Jews say that reformed Judaism isn't Judaism. I guess they think you should actually believe in God to be called a Jew?

I passed on the sequel.

This author did her homework. Russel must have studied science, linguistics, culture, politics, and religion profusely, but she somehow managed to bring all this information to the readers' level so that we could understand her complex concept of space travel and time travel. She used her intellectual abilities and her wonderful storytelling skills to make this farfetched story believable--and therefore powerful.

I laughed often while reading this book, and I certainly cried. Wailed, more like it. Because this wasn't just about good "special effects," it was a tragic spiritual journey of a deeply religious man.

Even if you don't like sci-fi, read this one.

After reading the other reviews, I am not sure that everyone has the same taste as I do, but I thought the book was marvelous! I am a linguist at a Jesuit University and happen to be a sci-fi fan as well. Hearing this, someone recommended this book to me and I thought, 'Why not?'. I was looking for ideas. I had no idea it would be so good! I didn't know it was so focused around religion before starting or I might have been turned off, but the musings about God and religion are rather more philosophical than anything else.

I was hooked after only the first two chapters. Everyone in the year 2060 wanted to know what could have happened during the mission to Rakhat and by the third or fourth chapter, I was dying to know, too! The back and forth from "present" 2060 to 2019 when it all began created a riveting suspense! The main characters were wonderfully developed and, of course, I was personally delighted and entertained by the anthropological and linguistic details.

It was an unusual feeling to be falling in love with a character in a chapter with the full knowledge that this character would eventually die. I found myself thinking, but *this* one might live. He/she is too special to be killed off, right?

There is, as is often the case with fiction - especially science fiction, a requirement for the reader to be able to suspend reality. I found some of her 'futuristic' ideas, such as the AI 'vultures' and 'futures brokers' to be very creative.

My only criticism is that the end seemed way too hurried. It's as though she got tired of writing and piled everything into the last couple of chapters, disposing offhandedly of characters we had, by that point, become very attached to. I wish her editors had made her extend the last few chapters and develop them more. Despite that bit of disappointment, the rest of the book is incredible, making it well worth a read as a whole! I just found out that there is a sequel and I'm definitely going to give that a try.

Not a fan of science fiction, I read this book as part of a book club. I had a terrible time of it for approximately the first 100 pages and found myself having to go back and re-read parts. The skipping around from 2060 and 2019 was very confusing. I didn't especially feel attached to any of the characters and at times thought the characterization and especially the dialogue was very sophomoric. Then, it seemed to pull me in.

The questions of faith, theology, and God's grace are explored through a rather trite plot line of humans meeting extraterrestrials. I'm assuming that the author wanted to spur the reader to ask some basic questions of faith and God's role in the everyday and in the extraordinary lives of each of us. A worthwhile goal, but because the situations are so bizarre (it is science fiction), I just couldn't relate to the story well enough to give this five stars. This is certainly not everyone's cup of tea; yet, I can see for some that it might be very thought provoking.

It took me a while to get into this book because of the large number of foreign names and the dual storylines, but once I came to know the characters whose lives were changed by the discovery of a sentient radio transmission from Alpha Centauri, I absolutely couldn't put it down. I was absorbed by premise of this story of First Contact and the inadvertent mistakes even the well-meaning make, perhaps inevitably. But it was the humanity of the brave band of travelers that truly drew me in and held me.

Highly recommended for those who enjoy intelligent science fiction.

I found this to be one of the best books I have ever read. I am not fond of science fiction generally, but sister told me I had to read this book. I found it to be well-written and to have so much depth. I have not seen a book that deals with faith in such a complex and moving way. That said I would not recommend Russell's sequel to this book. The richness of The Sparrow comes from its loose ends left at the end. In the Children of God, she tries too hard to tie everything up in a way that lacks that same depth.

sci-fi books I've ever read. A hauntingly believable account of the first human voyage to an inhabited alien planet - with a little religious commentary thrown in. I've been a huge sci-fi fan for years, but this book destroyed any expectations I had regarding the way science fiction is written and read.

It's realistic portrayal of a future Earth where Hispanic and Catholic are the majority and poverty rampant on every continent is insightful and well contrived. The characters are real, human and colorful. Russell's account of their trip to and time on a distant planet where life has been discovered is enthralling, haunting and often beautiful in its ability to capture the real human emotion of such a journey and experience.

The trauma of dealing with another people - not just of another culture but another species - takes it's toll on all the characters, especially the narrator, a poor Spanish street kid with a penchant for languages turned Catholic priest. One of the most hauntingly complex and tortured characters I've come across as a reader.

This is an amazing book, beautifully written. A refreshing voice in the genre.

sci-fi books I've ever read. A hauntingly believable account of the first human voyage to an inhabited alien planet - with a little religious commentary thrown in. I've been a huge sci-fi fan for years, but this book destroyed any (unrecognized) expectations I had regarding the way science fiction is written and read. A new and refreshing tone to the genre.

This book is definately in the true spirit of SiFi. It's a must read for science fiction fans. Hopeing the sequel is as good.

The most human and intellectually smart piece of science fiction that I have ever read.

There are some people who should just not write science fiction, who should just stick to drama without the science, and Mary Doria Russell is most assuredly one of them.

Let me start off by saying that if you go on an 8.6 light-year round trip to the Centauri system, the difference between your clock and Earth time will be at most 8.6 years, and that is if you are travelling very, very close to the speed of light. If you take 34 years for a round trip, you will experience 32 to 33 years. If you accelerate all the way to the halfway point and decelerate from then on, it may be 32 or a little less (it's a tough calculation); if you go more or less at constant speed for most of the journey, closer to 33. It won't even be 8.6 years of difference, just one or two. It would be a very long, boring trip and relativity would be a noticible but not profound effect, and no one would be in any condition for life on a planet with gravity when they got there, if they survived the journey at all. No twin paradox. So why would she put something she obviously doesn't understand in the least into her story in such a major way? I don't know. Because everyone else was doing it too, I guess. Literature buffs not giving science its fair respect, I would speculate. The time delay was critical in the foundation of the book, so this isn't just some little technicality.

The story itself is rather good. She's a good writer. It's hard to come up with a detailed, involved story and characters that aren't flat as a mat. But by golly, she should stick to what she's good at and write fiction and leave out the science. Just like Larry Niven and Orson Scott Card.

Although the story is good and the plot is original and engrossing, I would not recommend this for children. Or Republicans. It involves beastiality, sodomy, rape, cannibalism and mutilation. It does! In fact, the former three all at the same time! Hopefully Amazon won't take out my words because they find them offensive, because by golly it's really in there and if you're looking at reviews trying to decide if you want to read the book, and that offends you, it's better if you read the empty words here rather than the actual book so that you know what you're avoiding. It's not in explicit detail, but an evil smile crosses my face when I imagine a child saying 'mommy, what's this part mean?'

I just finished "The Sparrow" (it's costing me a good night's sleep), and I just want to add my five stars for what is easily the most powerful novel I have read in years. Check out the other comments here, including the editorial reviews (not the one from Publishers Weekly, whose reviewer didn't seem to get it), to get a feeling for the book. If you're at all interested in a stirring story with magnificent characters and big themes of fate, faith, and love--and don't mind losing some sleep while you mull it all--take a chance on this great book.

This is a must-read book for anyone who is interested in science fiction, theology or aspects of human relationship. I found that this - and its sequel - are outstandingly written and should be read by all.

GET THIS BOOK!!

I read The Sparrow as part of a science fiction project for my high school. A list of sci-fi books was provided, and I choose this book because I had never heard of it, and also because my teacher highly recommended it. The general plot is that an astronomer picks up an alien (musical) broadcast, and various specialists are sent to seek the unknown planet. This given, the novel was far less about science fiction than I thought it would be.
The story goes back and forth in two different time periods. The first setting is the buildup of characters and implementation of the mission to the alien planet Rakhat in the past. The second is the aftermath of the tragic mission, where the lone survivor, Emilio Sanchez, is haunted by the past, and at the same time being urged to inform his Jesuit brothers what actually happened out in space. The novel begins in the latter, and shifts back and forth between the two seamlessly, sharing correlating pieces of information about the mission and brilliantly developing characters along the way.
When reading the book, you truly feel as though you know the characters. Emilio Sanchez, the main character, is a Jesuit priest. A wisecracking, cynical priest, he was raised in Puerto Rico. He is a natural linguist, in charge of communicating with the so-called `Singers' upon landing. Before he goes to the planet, he is a spiritual man who believes the crew coming together and the discovering the signal were acts of God, but in the aftermath, he seems like a spiritually ruined man who has lost all faith. This and the fact that he is barely willing to say a word to the Jesuits show that something traumatic happened on the alien planet. Emilio is coupled with seven other richly drawn characters to make the crew of the Jesuit-funded mission. These include a naturalist, engineer, astronomer, medic, musicologist, and others. It is a perfect blend of characters; priests and agnostics, serious and comic, etc. Each character is looking for something by going on the mission, whether it is the alien species, recognition, acceptance, fulfillment, or even God. The story is based strongly on their relationships with one another. This ranges from their humorous interactions, in which I actually laughed out loud, to their serious debates and questions towards one another about religion, which kept me thinking for hours.
This novel was far from boring. All the characters' pasts and flashbacks, as well as the interactions with the alien species, kept me from wanting to put this book down. Each page is filled with wonderful detail. The reader will get out what he or she puts in, and each reader will get something different out of the book. It is a book that you will savor for days, questioning what role God played in this tragic story. I plan on reading The Sparrow over again, and then diving into the sequel, Children of God.
I highly recommend this book for anyone; I give it five stars.

When three very different people told me this was their favorite book, I knew I had to read it. So glad I did--I really loved it. What great story-telling from a debut author. It's VERY intense, but in a good "I don't want it to end" pageturning way. And the best thing is that it you can stay in that world once you've finished THE SPARROW, since Russell wrote a sequel which is just as good in its way (although not as unique-seeming after reading the first). I always feel that a good book is one that makes you want to talk about it and recommend it, and this one is definitely like that.
By the way, just read that Brad Pitt is due to star in the movie--am sort of dreading it (will he try a Spanish accent as Sandoz?). How can they possibly bring to film the people of that other planet and the awful things that were done to our hero (including the mutilation of his hands)? But they'll have a great cast of characters. Well, the advice is the same as with any great book: read the book BEFORE the movie comes out!

This book tells two stories. The first begins the book. Emilio Sanchez, the only survivor of a Jesuit-funded mission to Alpha Centauri, returns to Earth and Rome, completely ruined in body, soul, and spirit, refusing to talk about his experience although he had been discovered by a second expedition in circumstances suggesting that he had become debauched into an horrific sinner. The Jesuits try to heal him and get him to talk. The second story, told interchangeably with the first, relates the complete history of that initial expedition until Sanchez was discovered and the first story begins. The second story assembles one of the most delightful casts I've ever encountered in a novel: a group of wise-cracking priests and scientists who genuinely love each other. A core group of five people learn to know each other on Puerto Rico, accidentally discover alien musical broadcasts from Alpha Centauri, and are incorporated into the final eight-person team who travel by mechanized asteroid to the planet, meet the planet, meet the aliens, learn the languages, and . . . At each step of this process, the team is filled with great joy and delight. It becomes evident to most of them, aided by Sanchez's own insistence, that God has assembled this group uniquely and prepared each step of their journey by His grace. Sanchez, in particular, is full of praise. His superior, the leader of the expedition, tentatively suggests to the Jesuit hierarchy back home that Sanchez is becoming a saint.

Both worlds-the internal world of the expedition and the external, alien world of a new planet-are rendered with zest, although the internal group dynamics have more precision. Russell uncovers the emotional complexity of the group with subtlety and skill, using several different, fully-realised characters as points-of-view. In one of the humbler authorial jobs I've seen, she often lets her witty and brilliant characters outshine her own not inconsiderable prose with their dialogue. The alien world, on the other hand, does not suffer from too much description; she lets us know tantalizing salient features, but keeps much of it unexplained, since much of it would be (to humans) inexplicable, and this is in fact the crux of the story.

Over all this second story hangs the knowledge we get on the book's first page: the expedition, full of lovely people doing exciting things joyfully together, ends in disaster, is in fact a tragedy. It describes an arc from an attractive portrait of goodness and rightness to a heartbreaking catastrophe. The second story occupies most of the book and is more of a story, frankly, but the chief suspense concerns the end of the first story. The second story, we know, is a tragedy. Will the first story be a comedy? Will it start in disaster and end in happiness? Will Sanchez find healing?

And what precise role does God have in this story, the God who, as we have been assured by the characters, even the agnostic ones, has plotted this cruel, tragic expedition with the assiduity of an Author?

This is something of a rarity among all the science fiction titles published every year: it's a highly intelligent work of literature. That said, plot still counts for something, and endings can make or break books. The fact that this remains a cult classic despite its uneven plot and weak denouement is due to the cast of vivid characters and the strength of ideas expressed, which (ironically) only serve to make the "what the...?" ending even more disappointing.

And those characters! One of the reviewers here said she would like to talk to the entire crew; hell, I want to go with them. (Although I don't want their typical fate at the end.) The depth of religious and philosophical discussions and ruminations nearly makes up for the other flaws, and sets this book well above standard sci-fi fare.

If the ending had been stronger, this would have been a five-star book.

Another intelligent new book for your consideration: An Audience for Einstein. Set in the near future, Mark Wakely's book chronicles the "rebirth" of a genius by questionable means, in a highly entertaining and surprisingly touching story that (like The Sparrow) will stay with you.

Wonderfully exotic. Science fiction from a spiritual look. The story is so extraordinarily interesting that the science fiction enthusiast would not be bothered by the spirituality if he so pleases. The book jumps back and forth between time intervals; from the experiences on the alien planet to the "questioning" on earth. The motley crew of time travelers made the story very interesting. Although, the multitude of languages could be quite mesmerizing. There was some technical data that I felt was left out, but I guess we are just to leave to imagination.

"Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your father knowing about it." Matthew 10:29

Not only do I judge a story by its plot but also by its literary content. This book has both, in spades. Russell's writing style is haunting, as are her characters and plot. I feel I have known Emilio Sandoz myself, and he is amazing.

I will remember this book throughout my life, and I highly recommend it to any reader.

Although I am not religious and typically avoid books that might incorporate creeds into its devices, this book is not that kind of novel. It is fantastic at invoking relgious experience and hubris as a dramatic plot device. There is a moral here, and it's not what one expects.

Five stars, without question.

In spite of the premise, this is not a science fiction novel. Emilio's story is a deeply personal one, and Russell portrays very human characters with honesty and realism. The novel switches deftly from the perspective of the researchers both before and during the mission and the subsequent Jesuit hearings on Earth following Sandoz's return and the shocking allegations as to his own involvement in the tragedy. Throughout, the theme of faith is addressed again and again as Emilio struggles with his own belief in the face of the events on Rakhat.

Just as this is not a science fiction novel, so too is it not a Christian novel. The concepts of belief, cosmology, faith, and divine purpose that Russell addresses throughout are made stronger and more affective in their universality. The relationships among the different members of the group are nuanced and complex, and Russell communicates these with a strength and realistic conveyance that I have rarely seen equaled. The Sparrow is definitely not escapist literature, but would in fact keep me up long after I'd put it down for bed mulling over its revelations. I also respected and appreciated the author's well-researched graps of anthropology, ecology, and astronomy, which I felt made the book stronger than it would have been if she had tiptoed around the real science.

A warning: Russell has a distinct narrative style, and this book w