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by: Mary Doria Russell
List Price: $14.95Amazon.com's Price: $10.17 You Save: $4.78 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780449912553
ISBN: 0449912558
Label: Ballantine Books
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 448
Publication Date: September 08, 1997
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release Date: September 08, 1997
Sales Rank: 2535
Studio: Ballantine Books
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet which will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question the meaning of being 'human.' When the lone survivor of the expedition, Emilio Sandoz, returns to Earth in 2059, he will try to explain what went wrong... Words like 'provocative' and 'compelling' will come to mind as you read this shocking novel about first contact with a race that creates music akin to both poetry and prayer.
Product Description:
'A NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT . . . Russell shows herself to be a skillful storyteller who subtly and expertly builds suspense.'
--USA Today
'AN EXPERIENCE NOT TO BE MISSED . . . If you have to send a group of people to a newly discovered planet to contact a totally unknown species, whom would you choose? How about four Jesuit priests, a young astronomer, a physician, her engineer husband, and a child prostitute-turned-computer-expert? That's who Mary Doria Russell sends in her new novel, The Sparrow. This motley combination of agnostics, true believers, and misfits becomes the first to explore the Alpha Centuri world of Rakhat with both enlightening and disastrous results. . . . Vivid and engaging . . . An incredible novel.'
--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
'POWERFUL . . . Father Emilio Sandoz [is] the only survivor of a Jesuit mission to the planet Rakhat, 'a soul . . . looking for God.' We first meet him in Italy . . . sullen and bitter. . . . But he was not always this way, as we learn through flashbacks that tell the story of the ill-fated trip. . . . The Sparrow tackles a difficult subject with grace and intelligence.'
--San Francisco Chronicle
'SMOOTH STORYTELLING AND GORGEOUS CHARACTERIZATION . . . Important novels leave deep cracks in our beliefs, our prejudices, and our blinders. The Sparrow is one of them.'
--Entertainment Weekly
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Spellbound
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 ... Read More
Rating:  - A Flawed, Inauthentic Representation of Faith
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, ... Read More
Rating: - More about voyeuristic persecution than an exploration of faith
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 ... Read More
Rating:  - Very nearly perfect
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. ... Read More
Rating: - an exploration of God's relationship with humans
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 ... Read More
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