Awful.

Poorly thought out, too. Somehow there's near lightspeed travel, yet they can't radio for help because. Well. Whatever.

And don't start me on the fragmented flashback / present nonsense. Tell your damn story in chronological order, thank you.

The whole book is a vehicle for the author's extensive experience in things other than science-fiction, so...it's more exegesis than story.

To clarify - the writing style is ok, but could be improved to my taste, and while the plot is also fine, I don't see why it has to be this contrived sci-fi story when it could just as easily have been historical fiction and been even more pointed as social / anthropological commentary. And that version of the book would leverage even more of the author's expertise.

I am going to need a minute or 5,000 to process this

The Sparrow is an example of good writing coupled with incredibly bad science fiction. Mary Doria Russell creates believable characters with unique personalities. Each of them approaches life based on their experiences and brings detailed emotions to the page. It's the interactions between these characters and plot that compensates for the novel’s incredibly implausible premise: the Catholic Church is at the vanguard of space exploration in the 21st century.

Yes, a group of priests, a couple of retired people, a good-looking Jewish girl, and a pre-doctoral science guy are all selected by the Jesuit order of the Catholic Church to journey forth on a space mission. These adventurous amateurs will be the first of mankind to travel light-years into the galaxy to explore a few momentary radio signals received from the Alpha Centauri system.

For this mission, there's no need for professional astronauts and specialized scientists, no need to use the available spacefaring technology to remotely study the system without risk to human life, and no need to consider the ramifications of possibly jumping into an unknown society and contaminating a foreign world and its cultures. They just do it, and it’s a constant source of disbelief throughout the length of the novel.

To be fair, such an ill-conceived mission would obviously run into insurmountable problems, which it does. As such, Russell actually depicts believable results associated with such unbelievable actions. And maybe that's the point. Perhaps this is a retelling of the consequences of our original seafaring explorations undertaken by European powers during the dawn of colonialism. But we know better. For that type of story to work it would require a complete abandonment of today’s collective wisdom, which was hard-won from the past, and is fully known to those that take life seriously in the present as well as at the time of The Sparrow's creation.

All that stuck with me about this book: Alien anal rape. Seriously. The lovely sound of the cosmos...descriptions of the taste of a victim's fear. I just...why does this get such high ratings?? I seriously cannot stand this book, and find it's place in scifi repugnant. Jesuits in space! Give me a break.

I read this book in the Fall of 2010. I know I push a lot books on here. I get passionate about what I read but I'm going to push a book on you and I'm serious, I really want you to read it. Honestly, this book reminds me of a low, indescribable buzzing in the room that gets louder and louder until suddenly you realize that you have your hands over your ears and your teeth are vibrating and you're like scared that your brains are leaking out of your ears. Compelling enough for you? Do I have your attention. Does this cover evoke a sense of peace and serenity because that's the first plot twist. Because later, the author blows your mind with originality and shocking, provocative twists and turns--you'll never see it coming. It's Ray Bradburyish. It's H. G. Wellsish in its explorative nature...it's science fiction, it's moral, it's vulnerable, its painful and beautiful and just buy it and read it okay? Okay. Now I can rest. Now I can make nachos and read a book and know that you've heard me and you're going to listen. Love you all! ✨

This story has been told before(Contact). A signal detected from another world and then the mad race to get there and find paradise because, in this case, we are all gods children. But, low and behold, what starts out as a fun time had by all, soon turns into a nightmare of epic proportions with only one survivor from a crew of seven.

For the most part it was a wonderful reading experience, beautiful in it's world building , full of mad ideas and interesting characters. however, it does get a bit bogged down a little bit in the middle with long discussions about faith and morality which I found a little bit boring.

The ending though., so brilliantly at odds with the rest of the book, brutal, horrific and shocking, and I really wasn't expecting it. Of course, non of what comes out in those final scenes will ever be made public becauase.... The Church.

Well, dang it.

Dang it!

I was NOT in the mood to give another scathing review of a book, especially not a book that has a near cultish fan following, as this one does.

This is a seriously beloved book (with a 4.17 overall rating).

But, for the first time in my existence on this planet, I'm going to quote Whitesnake:

Here I go again on my own
Goin' down the only road I've ever known
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone.
And I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time.

Yep, that's right. I just quoted an 80s band with bad hair, 'cause I'm in my 40s now, people, and "I ain't wasting no more time."

The people who adore this book treat it almost like a coveted lover.

Well, let me tell you, friends, if this had been MY lover. . .

We wouldn't have made it past appetizers.

It took ME, a wicked fast reader, almost 5 days to make it to page 88. Then on that page, there's a brief moment of glory in the plot, and I thought to myself. . . okay, it's going to take off now! Nope. No it didn't.

And, if this type of slow-moving plot and character development is Ms. Russell's version of literary foreplay, I say. . . it's time to tap this lover on the shoulder and tell him, "Let's be done, dear. It's obvious that no one's going to climax today."

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell was a remarkable piece of literature and is one I'm not likely to forget anytime soon. My sincere thanks to Goodreads friends Candi, Sara, Celia and Katie for their wonderful reviews. If not for their words I sincerely doubt I would have found my way to this book. Yet their wonderful reviews have seen me floundering for over a month about what more I can possibly add to the conversation. The answer for me is not much, other than to say that in the weeks since closing the final pages I've thought back on the book, the characters and their words more often than I can believe, and I've been anxiously waiting to get my hands on the sequel Children of God.

This novel was set in, and alternated between, 2019 and 2060. In 2019 the main character - Emelio Sandoz a Jesuit priest and linguistical master - and a group of six highly skilled professionals who happen to also be friends are preparing themselves for a journey to Rakhat, a planet where evidence of music has been discovered. In this time frame we get to know all seven characters, some more intimately than others, and the anticipation and excitement builds as we hope for a successful expedition. The characters are not without their flaws but in essence seem to be good people and I found them highly likeable. So it was difficult knowing that in those parts of the story set in 2060 Emelio was the only one to return to earth. He is disfigured, unwell and is being held by the Jesuits as he's been accused of all manner of crimes. None of the accusations gel with what we knew of Emelio before the trip but he refuses to discuss the claims and in some cases acknowledges them to be true. It's hard to imagine just what had taken place out there on Rakhat.

I think that's revealing more than enough about the plot, suffice to say it was a great story. And don't even get me started on the writing which was superb. I have pages of quotes which resonated with me and which I've looked back on and thought about multiple times. I particularly enjoyed many of the quotes attributed to Anne when she and Emelio spoke about relationships, religion and so many other deep and meaningful topics. Considering this was written in 1996 and would have been somewhat futuristic, it felt surprisingly realistic in 2019. There are very few sci fi type books I've enjoyed but this is hands down one of the best I've read. Anyway.... like I said nothing too new about my review. My final word on the topic - please do yourself a favour and find an excuse to slot this wonderful book into your reading schedule.

Not at all what I was anticipating. A story of pure friendship, a search for meaning, and the despair of having the core of your being turned against you.

CONTENT WARNING: Extremely graphic and prolonged discussion of rape. Death of loved ones. Mutilation and torture.

Things to love:

-The characters. You can't help it. They're all so great.

-The story structure. Watching it all unfold, with the prejudices and fears of hindsight, is great.

-The philosophical/religious discussion. I am nonreligious myself, but the questions of God, purpose, and self are still interesting to me. These were addressed so expertly and so neatly, that it never felt preachy or sarcastic. I loved the considerations.

-The non-physics science. The social sciences, medicine, biology, chemistry, all that were the highlights of this book and I, with my limited knowledge, found it at least believable. The linguistics especially were awesome! I really do love multi-lingual characters when they're well written.

-The dialogue. I could lump this in with the characters, but it's really more than that. So often dialogue feels like it's clearly a plot device, or that the author did not check that this is how a person would ever speak. The dialogue was so natural, even the times it was a plot device went unnoticed until the tie-in was revealed. Beautiful conversations.

Things that detracted slightly from my love of it:

-Marc the Frenchman (?). It is clear that the author, like her main character, does not speak French, and has not spent time with a bilingual Acadian, Quebecois or French speaker. In a book so spot on with other language use, this became glaring, though trivial to the story. Certainly in the confines of a ship, his regional loyalty would become apparent. I'm still confused where he's from.

-The pacing. There's a slow build, and then the big events are more or less rushed through. They were traumatic of course, so unpleasant to spend a lot of time on, but it was strange given the step-by-step progression of the rest of the book. I'd have liked to have spent more time with Sandoz and how he processed these events within his mindset then and now.

-Emotion and sex. It jarred me that the two women--an emergency surgeon/hostess extraordinaire and a brilliant systems programmer who also heals herself enough to love/offer affection--are deemed "all emotion" or "all brain." The also-multitalented men are viewed as a more balanced mix. Not buying it. And then sex and celibacy are over-discussed. I get how it's important, but those were the few times I thought to myself that I was sitting in a plot device.

It was a beautifully written tragedy. Or perhaps farce. Definitely worth a read if you can stomach the issues presented in the content warning and are okay reading about the Judeo-Christian ethics extolled or maligned.

n  “Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.” (Matthew 10:29)
“But the sparrow still falls.” n

I think the second sentence in the above quote (from page 401) basically says “shit happens”. It does encapsulate the major theme of the novel quite well I think.

The Sparrow is one of those books I hear people raving about and immediately put on my TBR list, where hundreds of books languish, but it won’t stay there quietly as I keep hearing about it almost on a weekly basis. So I have to capitulate or go mad and move it to the top of the pile.

In a nutshell The Sparrow is about a mission organized by the Jesuit order to a planet called Rakhat where a satellite received a transmission of alien music from the vicinity of Alpha Centauri.

The novel has a dual timelines narrative structure. In the “present-day” timeline at the beginning of the book, it is revealed that the protagonist Father Emilio Sandoz is the only survivor of the mission. He is in very poor shape with grossly mutilated hands and he is on trial for a couple of heinous crimes he allegedly committed on the alien planet. This leads to the flashback timeline where the details and mysteries of the mission gradually unfold.

As with most novels the shorter the synopsis the better I think (plus I hate writing them). Mary Doria Russell certainly plays her cards close to her chest. I was intrigued pretty much from beginning to end and while The Sparrow is not a fast-paced novel it is something of a page-turner. I had no idea the book has a dual timeline and initially, I made the mistake of not paying any attention to the date indicated at the beginning of the chapters and had to backtrack. So I would recommend paying close attention until you are settled into the narrative.

n  “The problem with atheism, I find, under these circumstances, is that I have no one to despise but myself. If, however, I choose to believe that God is vicious, then at least I have the solace of hating God.”n

While it is certainly a science fiction novel the emphasis is not on the sci-fi-ness of first contact with aliens, it is more an exploration of faith. Not in a proselytizing sense, Ms. Russell is not badgering the reader to accept God, she is writing about what can happen if you do, what can you reasonably expect to get for your faith. Should you believe that He watches over you 24/7? (She describes this as the belief in God’s micromanagement). Without really spoiling the book I can tell you that some very awful things happen to very good people, including the pious ones.

In spite of the religious theme, the First Contact with aliens aspect is not neglected. The conditions of the planet Rakhat are clearly described and the alien native species is vividly imagined. They are very similar to humans in many ways but extremely alien in many others. The exposition of their biology, culture, cities, etc is just the sort of thing most sci-fi readers would appreciate. It also leads to the secondary theme of the danger of the First Contact, of interfering (even with the best of intentions) in a culture you don’t really understand (but think you do) because of a few similarities to your own.

The seriousness of the main themes is nicely balanced by the infusion of humour throughout the book. The author does have quite a flair for witty bantering dialogue and the prose style is nice and smooth. The characters are very well developed though I would caution you not to become too attached to any of them. My only complaint is the mention of “Van Halen’s arena rock masterpiece, 5150”. Please! That’s Van-Hagar! (if you have no idea what I’m on about just ignore this bit of nonsense).

OK, I am almost done, just a quick look at a quote from Wikipedia:

n  "Nancy Pearl, a reviewer at Library Journal, felt that this book was mistakenly categorized as science fiction and that it is really "a philosophical novel about the nature of good and evil and what happens when a man tries to do the right thing, for the right reasons and ends up causing incalculable harm."n

When a “literati” type finds a sci-fi book that they like they tend to immediately declassify it as “not sci-fi”; aliens, spaceships, futuristic techs etc. notwithstanding of course! Of course The Sparrow is sci-fi, it even says so on the tin. Very good sci-fi it is too (unless you dislike religious themes then this is not for you). The sequel Children of God is very near the top of my TBR.


Note:
We are having a good discussion about this book at Print SF (on Reddit) if you are interested.

3 Stars for The Sparrow (audiobook) by Mary Doria Russell read by David Colacci.

This was kind of disappointing. I’ve read 3 of the author’s other books and really enjoyed them, but none of them were science fiction. I thought that this was going to be something like Contact. Which is one of my favorite books and movies. The story is set in space but the author’s interests really we in Sociology and Anthropology. I will be skipping the second book in the series.

Okay, this is going to be quick and sloppy, because it is past my bedtime, but I want to get this over with because this stupid book made me MAD.

I looked forward to reading The Sparrow for years, and now I am seriously disappointed. The book had an ambitious premise, potentially fascinating subject matter, and occasional moments of very sharp insight, all of which drown under a ludicrous premise and mounds of cheap pathos, to the point where I actually cursed out loud multiple times as I neared the end of the book. If it hadn't been for a book club, I probably would have put the thing down before I'd finished the first chapter.

Characters: The most interesting character, for me, was Supaari VaGayjur. The others had their strengths, but pretty much all of them were ethnic and regional stereotypes, and it got more and more grating as the book went on. Sofia Mendes, for example, is a brilliant, well-traveled, multilingual polymath of Sephardic Jewish ancestry. When she meets Emilio Sandoz, a mestizo Puerto Rican priest who has a beard that sort of looks like a Spanish Inquisitor's, she immediately dislikes and distrusts him because "his ancestors threw her ancestors out of Spain 500 years ago." (Sofia Mendes, one of only two women in the main cast, gets progressively less rational as the story proceeds.) Too many other examples to name, and it got more annoying every time.

Plot: Stupid people do something incredibly dumb and selfish and steal the joy of first contact from the entire human population because they want to get in first and proselytize! When intelligent life is detected nearby in space, the Society of Jesus funds an incredibly dangerous bare-bones MANNED mission to bring God to the neighbors, shooting the crew off into space without so much as locating the planet or discovering whether it has a breathable atmosphere. Most of the crew dies in ridiculously senseless and anticlimactic ways so that the main character, a saintly priest, can be tested by suffering. We don't find out any of this in sequence; it's all built up as a great tragic mystery, with lots of tantalizing hints to keep the reader hanging on, until everything is explained in an almost throwaway climax in the last few pages of the book.

Well, I say "climax"; really the climax is when Sandoz explains to his shocked superiors that actually he was not working voluntarily as a prostitute in an alien brothel, but had been forced into sexual slavery, and in making his "confession" begins to heal of his emotional scars so that he can be asked out on another mission to the same damn place. The modern plotline, where Sandoz is dealing with his grief and starting to learn to live as a human again, is actually vastly superior to the plotline where he is ON ANOTHER PLANET MEETING ALIENS, which is about as sad a thing as can be said of a science fiction novel.

Setting: And really, why make this a science fiction novel? These people travel to Alpha Centauri and find two species of SENTIENT MAMMALS? Bipedal vertebrates with eyelashes and tails and culturally mandated gender roles? With languages perfectly reproducible by a human tongue, and an instinctive appreciation for the smell of coffee? On a planet where the humans--from four effing light years away--can eat almost all of the food and find it perfectly nutritious if not always perfectly tasty? Not to speak of the whole space-concubine thing, which, ew. (And by the way, I thought her handling of that portion was very tasteless. Maudlin, overblown... ugh.)

You olds and your Star Trek. Nothing on Rakhat even approached the alienness of, say, an octopus, and I had the feeling that Russell really wanted to be writing a first-contact novel set in India or something but couldn't do it without lots of research and the possibility of offending someone.

Even Earth was wrong! What kind of futurist would predict someone born in, say, 1995 (Jimmy Quinn) who had never heard of Star Trek? Conversely, why the hell did all the characters in 2060 spend so much time quoting to each other from Young Frankenstein and The Princess Bride? The only neat detail that really stuck with me was the idea of Pompeii erupting again while the tourists were gone, and that was just a humorous aside.

I actually think this could have made a very lovely fantasy story, because the two alien cultures on Rakhat are actually quite believable as possible human cultures from another time and place. It was just so implausible, though, that I could hardly enjoy the story.

Maybe I am missing most of this book's appeal by coming at it from the perspective of an areligious person, but damn, this was not what I expected.