Emilio Sandoz is a Jesuit priest. He has just arrived back to Earth after having been on a journey to another planet to make contact with aliens. He is a broken man. The things he has been through have left him shaken to his core, and they have shaken his faith in God. We find out these things gradually. The story is told backwards in that it starts with the return of Sandoz to Earth. Only later, as Sandoz himself starts to come to terms […]
Halo 2 + Interstellar + Job = Children of God
Like faintingviolet, I just finished Children of God, the followup to Mary Doria Russell’s much acclaimed The Sparrow. You can’t talk about Children without talking about the first book. Russell is a paleoanthropologist. Her unique mix of professional training, Judaism, and Christianity led to an impressive work of theology and science fiction in The Sparrow. The novel chronicles an ill-fated trip by Jesuit priests and professionals to a distant planet called Rakhat. Russell herself, who has been a person of faith and an atheist, said the theme of the first book was an […]
Mary Doria Russell Always Makes Me THINK
I read The Sparrow last year and was absolutely gutted by the story of Father Emilio Sandoz and the crew of the first mission to Rakhat. Having decided to work my way through Mary Doria Russell’s works, I knew that I would eventually read its sequel, Children of God. However, I knew very little about it, other than that it continued Emilio’s story. Bonnie also read The Sparrow for Cannonball Read 7, and we had talked about reading Children of Men together this year. In […]
“the sparrow still falls”
Many moons ago I read Dreamers of the Day for CBR4. I loved the prose, and marveled at the rich character development even if my review isn’t as effusive (the book has grown on me over time). The author, Mary Doria Russell, has received positive reviews over the course of the many Cannonball Reads, so I decided that I wanted to jump back in with this author. I put The Sparrow on my library request list, and when the email came in that it was […]