Rating: 
Summary: Bad Book
Review: If you like quality SF written by the likes of Gene Wolfe, Vernor Vinge, Stephen Donaldson, John Varley, C.J. Cherryh and the like, you will hate this book. The plot is a con job with an anticlimax that will leave you asking for your money back. The characters are nothing more than different names with the same voice (presumably the author's). The science is so laughable as to be distracting. Most importantly, the philosophical/religious exploration is pure sophistry. OTOH, if you are 12 years old you might really enjoy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent novel on first contact with an alien species!
Review: If you enjoyed The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven, you will love this novel. Both are excellent first contact novels.
Warning! This is a very dark novel. If you like all sunshine and light, Walt Disney happy ending novels - this is not your type of book.
The basic story line: Astronomers on earth have picked up signals from around Alpha Centauri, which turn out to be the most beautiful music humanity has ever heard. An expedition is sent out to make first contact with what must be intellegent life.
This book is the surviors story, told in flashbacks. The story centers around a Jesuit priest, Father Emilio Sandoz, an expert linquist, who has lost his faith in God after being the only known survivor of an expedition that has gone horribly wrong. The expedition party members went out with the best of intentions, but because of misunderstanding of the vast cultural differences between them and their alien hosts, and disturbed by what they percieve as the explotation of one part of this alien society by another, they decide to assist the small group of aliens that they are living among for several months with improved food yields. This starts a chain of events with results that prove disasterous for themselves and the entire planet.
This books operates on several levels and grapples with the issue of how does a person hold on to his faith in God and that everything in life that is experienced serves a higher purpose, when he is plunged into what seems to be an infinite amount of pain?
Rating:
Summary: Priests...in...spaaace!
Review: Who should read this novel? 1. Sci-fi fans - it has won lots of awards, featured on umpteen 'best of' lists and is just excellent science fiction. If I only had five sci-fi books, this would be one of them. Having said that, it's not 'hard sci-fi' - in other words it doesn't let the science get in the way of the story. Willing suspension of disbelief is the way to go. 2. anthropologists - Ok, so that's not many of us, but the point is that this book sensitively explores the concept of 'otherness'. There are two intelligent species on the planet. One is nice but dim, the other is bright but deadly. Who do the humans identify with? Intriguing question, huh? Well it was for me, anyway. 3. Religious people. And also people interested in the possibility of God, the possibility of forgiveness. This book faithfully addresses the seeming absence of God in the pain of the world (or should that be universe?). But it's never 'preachy', just keepin' it real. 4. Anyone who likes a good yarn. It's well written and the plot cracks along. The repeated cutting between the story of the mission and the aftermath of the mission keeps you guessing to the end. There's a kind of dawning realisation of the horror of what's being told, and I for one couldn't put it down. 5. Look, the first human contact with alien life is sponsored not by NASA but by... THE VATICAN! Its a mad idea - you just have to read this book to see how it works out.
Rating: 
Summary: An expedition of unprepared old people makes first contact
Review: Judging from the pretentious "Reader's Guide" at the end of the trade paperback edition I guess we are expected to regard The Sparrow as a major work of literature. If only this was true. The basic story is simple. The Vatican sends a group of people led by Jesuits on the first exploration of Alpha Centauri after transmissions are detected that indicate it may harbor intelligent life. The mission goes horribly wrong and the sole survivor is returned to Earth where he tells his story in a series of flashbacks. The biggest flaw in the book is that this is essentially a sixteenth century story of Jesuit missionaries sailing across the ocean to convert the Godless natives. The difference here is that another planet is substituted for the New World and the natives are replaced by aliens that act very much like humans. As a result, the science fiction part of the story seems tacked on and artificial. One of the first obligations of any science fiction novel is to get the basic science correct. How can the reader suspend disbelief if the events of the story cannot possible occur? Ms. Russell's let's-fly-an-asteroid-to-the-stars idea is hilariously idiotic on so many levels. Worse yet, her understanding of time dilation and relativity is incorrect. It is clear that she doesn't have even the simplest grasp of freshman physics and her characters could never make the trip to Alpha Centauri as described. This is the author's first literary work and it shows. The writing is often awkward and the humor is forced. The character of Ann is particularly annoying which is unfortunate since the author claims that she based Ann on herself in the "Reader's Guide". At one point in the story the author needs to cut off her characters from their orbiting mothership so she has one of the expedition fly their lander around until it has so little fuel that it cannot return to orbit. Doh! Some explorers... they can't even read a fuel gauge when the nearest filling station is 4.3 light years away! ... Reader unfamiliar with science fiction may enjoy this story to a greater degree than habitual science fiction readers who will find the science gaffs distracting. The sad part is that none of the futuristic elements of the story were needed at all. The same tale could be easily told as a historical novel and that fact is perhaps what dooms this novel to be poor science fiction. If you are looking for a good SF novel that deals with religion successfully try A Case of Conscience by James Blish
Rating:
Summary: Provocative read
Review: Interesting book. It wasn't my usual style and I wouldn't have bought it on my own. My copy of the book was a gift from a friend and I'm very glad she gave it to me! Interestingly, the Jewish computer expert seems to have converted the Jesuit priests as they speak of the Kabalistic interpretations as their own beliefs, something for which they would have been burned at an auto-de-fe by Loyola when the Jesuit Order was originally founded.
Rating:
Summary: Your chocolate's in my peanut butter!
Review: It's rare to find a speculative fiction novel that treats any belief system other than science or a fabricated alien religion with any degree of seriousness. Until I came accross this book, Walter Miller's Canticle for Leibowitz was the only successful attempt at combining the two I'd ever read. This book is much better than Miller's seminal work. As a science fiction fan, I'm always thrilled to read about an author's vision of the future and technology and alien races. As a fan of literature, I always feel a little guilty about being a science fiction fan. Let's face it - even some of the most revered science fiction novels of all time can feel a little clumsy, with wooden dialog and one-dimensional characters. Fortunately, Mary Doria Russell is a first rate humanistic writer with a tremendous ear for dialog as well as a crafter of fascinating alien worlds. This book is stunning!
Rating:
Summary: JESUITS IN SPACE!!!
Review: This was a refreshing science fiction book. Mary Doria Russell is an good writer. I was most pleased that Russell avoids the overuse of "techno babble," so often found in science fiction works. Instead, Russel builds up characters and constructs an extraterrestrial society, from the ground up. Relying on years of experience and expertise as an anthropologist, Russell constructs a believable and exciting narrative of what a first contact situation between humans and a new race of people would and could be like. She begins with the problems of communication which any first contact situation would obviously bring, and wisely chooses linguists to be main characters in this book. Nevertheless, there are some expected miscommunications, some with disasterous results! Father Emilio Sandoz, the hot Puerto-Rican Jesuit priest (aka Father "What a Waste!")is a brilliant character -- lovable and believable. The other characters are equally good. I especially liked the idea that Russell would choose to send a team of Jesuits and other social misfits off into space. Anyone familiar with the history of New World "discoveries" would especially appreciate the sweet irony of this choice, and revel in yet another failed attempt to successfully find some lost children of God. (But, for that, see her sequel!) Russell weaves into the story line subplots of the dangers and affects of so-called first contact encounters, reminding us how simple and subtle changes introduced to any society will always affect that society's political, economic, and social matrix. I appreciate that Russell relies on her own scientific background of anthropology and human evolution to reconstruct the evolutionary trajectory on Rakhat. It makes the book more believable. It will make a great novel to use as an accompanying text in an undergraduate anthropology class! If you are into hi-tech sci-fi, this is probably not the book for you. But, if you are interested in first contact scenarios, Jesuit relations, evolutionary biology, or just a good book to kick back with, this is a fun, roller-coaster of a ride! Sipaj!
Rating:
Summary: A good story with astronishingly 3d characters
Review: This story starts slowly and is presented in a sometimes-frustrating order (the reason for which becomes more motivated as the story reaches its climax), but all I can say is that it's worth putting up with these issues for a number of reasons: The characters in this book are amazingly life-like and often quite endearing. Often, one is lucky if they get an author who has sufficient insight into a single character that you can really see the story through that person's eyes. This story gives you a view of the story through the eyes of several characters, all of whom are richly described and quited varied in their points of view. Indeed, the whole story-telling challenge for Ms. Russell to show how the same set of facts can lead to radically different interpretations, depending on one's point of view. Something that's interesting about this story is its heavy reliance of religion as a central theme, without being either religious or anti-religious. One can see and appreciate both the religious and the non-religious characters without feeling one's own position (or lack thereof) challenged. I'm not religious myself, but I came away with tremendous respect for the religious characters presented. And yet there were also characters in the book who were more to my personal leaning and I liked them as well. Another strength of the book, for those who like that kind of thing, was the detailing of the linguistic and sociological issues involved in the alien world. Often this is given short shrift, but it takes more center stage here because it's central to the plot. I found this detailing both intellectually interesting and, often, artistically beautiful. As I mentioned, the plot starts slowly--enough so that I might have given up on this except that the reviews of the book had been so powerful that I figured I'd better hang in there. I was glad I did. The story itself builds toward an ending that I worried would disappoint, but I found to be quite powerful and unexpected. This goes beyond "simple scifi" to issues most scifi leaves aside. It deals in depth with themes of life and death and truth and honor in ways I usually don't find myself reading about--but in an enchanting way that made it a real treasure to find. My "reading" was of the unabridged audio cassette, and I enjoyed the reader quite a lot. A good use of voices and a very entertaining read. I preferred this reader to the reader of the abridged version of the sequel, Children of God, and I hope to see this reader to an unabridged reading at some point. (I was a little disappointed by the sequel in some ways, and I find myself wondering if my disappointment was with the sequel itself or the fact that I heard its abridgment. At the time of this review, no unabridged sequel was available on audio.)
Rating:
Summary: Great Discussion Book
Review: I've been in a book club for almost two years and this is the first book that we actually mananged to have a dicussion about. There was so much to the book-from the plot line to the writing style-there was something for everyone to enjoy. The story kept me interested all the way to the end and as soon as I was done I went out and bought the sequel!
Rating: 
Summary: An incredibly believable look at the not so distant future
Review: After reading 90% of this book, I was certain it would make my all time top 5 book favorites. The end is a little gruesome for me, but otherwise a top notch effort. All the characters are extremely believable both in their actions and speech. It was disturbing in many ways, and I loved the fact the author didn't shy away from the religious aspects of discovering life on another planet.
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