The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell

...style and story telling all the more remarkable, as a hidden talent becomes unveiled. The story follows close the journey of Father Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit with a facility for language, and an emptiness in his soul. Set in the near future when near-earth space travel has become if not commonplace at least not unusual, people are regularly mining the moon and asteroids for minerals and fuel. Sandoz is assigned to a mission near one of the big radio ...
...post discovers a signal from the nearby star system of Alpha Centauri, the process toward the journey begins. While nations debate and plan an exploratory trip, the Jesuit order (well known historically for missionary work) get their own trip underway, with a crew of Jesuits and laypersons each with differing expertise (one in musicology, as the transmission seem musical; and so forth). The process for travel is one that is inventive – essentially, ...

frkurt 03.11.2004 · Read full review
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Review of The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell

The front cover of the sparrow includes a quotation stating that the book is ‘compulsive reading and may be the year’s best science fiction novel.’ And declares that it is the ‘winner of the 1998 Arthur C. Clarke Award. This information would normally be quite enough to put me off reading it. I am not a SF fan at all. In fact I think I have only read a couple in my whole life and I wasn’t impressed. So although a friend gave me this book because ...
...time – another book on the ever growing heap and yet another task on my long list of things to do. Yesterday, noticing for the first time that it is published by Black Swan, a publishing house I respect, I made the effort to read it and to be honest was quite pleasantly surprised that once I had got into the story I actually did find it compulsive reading (I read it in one sitting) and did not find my general dislike of the genre interfered at all ...

Freespirit 01.10.2003 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell