Rating: 
Summary: Beautifully Stunning First Effort
Review: This is what science fiction can be when a writer of talent tries her hand. Insightful, moving, and beautifully written.
Rating: 
Summary: I don't get it
Review: I don't understand the praise for this book. I think the plothad interesting aspects and the characters had potential, but thewriting was sloppy and it desperately needed editing. The dialog was clumsy and didn't ring true. As another reviewer pointed out, the underlying notion that some of the Jesuits back on earth thought that Emilio had become corrupted and did something shameful is preposterious. What human being would think that after finding him out of his mind and mutiliated in that awful place. One could argue that Jesuits are unfeeling, but they aren't stupid. When we find out what happened to Emilio, is that supposed to be a surprise? Did we have to know exactly what happened? And the explanation for the source and reason for the music was like a ninth grader's attempt at irony. All the way through I was thinking that it was written to be made into a movie, which I understand is happening. I've heard people excuse the rough edges by saying it is a first novel, but for heaven's sakes, there must be thousands of authors trying to get books published. Why publish this author over others who actually sweated over the writing part?
Rating: 
Summary: An absolution, not a benediction
Review: "The Sparrow" has many faults, but science-fiction fans, Catholics and former Catholics, and people who wrestle with the dark implications of the New World's era of "discovery" should read it anyway. The writing is well above average for science fiction; the insight into Catholicism and the priesthood is very unusual; and the presentation of Job's complaint -- which is essentially what the hero's life comes down to -- is carefully assembled and compassionately presented. As other reviewers have noted, Russell desperately needed an editor to tell her to discard forced dialogue and rebuild it more convincingly, to coach her on the scientific disciplines she invokes, and most important: to tell her to SLOW DOWN and let the story unfold, not to hurry it along at the very most sensitive points. The book has the bizarre feature of being better in the exposition than in the climax -- much better. And that's a pity. We can pray to the Jesuits' god that the sequel will be better handled.
Rating: 
Summary: This Sparrow Falls with a Clunk
Review: Like its Biblical namesake, this Sparrow falls. Let us hope God does not note it. Its prose style is disposable, without a glimmer of wit to it. Its characters have little depth and many are caricatures who make the Power Rangers look profound. It has too many words, all strung together in uninteresting ways. It could be half its size. In these regards, it resembles much pulp science fiction. Unlike the pulps, it has no drama to redeem itself. Its idea - man's relation to a God who Lets Bad Things Happen to Good People - isn't new and is lost in all the novel's other problems. I suspect the book's main appeal arises from the all too trite plot of individual vs. institution. Given the author's obvious affection for the priest, the "Priest as Deplorable Whore" motif is unbelievable from the start. "Priests in Space" is not particularly original. Read Clarke's "The Star" or Blish's "Case of Conscience" or Simmon's "Hyperion." The only thing rating a "10" is the book's pomposity and arrogance as exemplified by the "Reader's Guide" at the end. I am in despair that fiction this poor is praised for the very qualities it lacks: originality, style and humanity. Trying isn't enough.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting, Thought-Provoking Fiction
Review: The last chapter of this book was almost physically painful to read. If your faith is strong, this book will weaken it. If your faith is weak, this book will strengthen it.
Rating:
Summary: Listen, everyone! You've got it all wrong.
Review: If Mary Doria Russell ever reads this review, I hail you now for changing my life. It has, I tell you true. I am a sixteen year old Catholic High School student, and this excellent book challenged everything in that I have ever believed. It will scare the easy decepted, and those tricked by fate, but hold to it for if you take it's message into your heart, you will become strong and adamant about what you believe. It's a novel for intelligentsia, surely, but it's a novel for the world; a giant metaphor that everyone should read.
Rating:
Summary: Jesuit Mission to Another World: Are Ethics Transferable ?
Review: 'The Sparrow' was all I hoped it would be. I am not a science fiction reader but I look for a smart, well constructed, character driven novel with nagging questions. They don't have to be answered, only asked. After several characters reveal themselves: their pasts, their faiths, and their fears, they grow as individuals as they face the challenge of exploring another culture. At the root of the novel are the ethics of population control, education for the poorest 96%, power for the powerless, a homicide, and the difference between rape and prostitution. The violence is not graphically written; much of the novel is presented as a few priests conduct an inquiry. The violence is subtle; the ethical aspects of the dialogs are well established in the events of the novel. No one sits around over coffee and bullshits; the characters are in constant activity of establishing their identities and exploring a earth-like satellite in the Alpha Centauri system. The novel's chapters alternate between present decades of the early 21st century and this allows for a traditional mystery story to be told. Yes, I had to read the last 100 pages at one setting.
Rating:
Summary: A good read, but not a great book.
Review: "The Sparrow" is a well-written and suspenseful book and should hold the interest of many different groups of readers. Those who have never met a Jesuit will be curious about the order as Dr. Russell portrays it, and may find their curiosity rewarded. It is likely that Jesuit-taught Catholics and others who already know that yes, Jesuits are human beings and frequently admirable or quirky ones, will be strongly polarized by Dr. Russell's portrayal. It is obvious that she was raised a Catholic (she is now a convert to Judaism) and it is also easy to believe that she is familiar with Jesuits: there is no "black-robe" mystique here. Instead, we are given a group of well-educated, well-intentioned men who are each extraordinary in some way and very ordinary in others. Dr. Russell is especially good at conveying a certain kind of humor which seems to belong only to Jesuits, although their lay friends may well find themselves being infected with it. This said, I was disappointed in Dr. Russell's inability to resist the nervous cutesiness that takes over most lay people and some religious in trying to write about priests as just plain folks. This complaint extends to her treatment of all her characters' sex lives. While it is true that religious do not become asexual in taking vows of celibacy, the people in "The Sparrow" are just too casual about it to be entirely believable and the sexual incidents accumulate too relentlessly. There is also an adolescent quality about her characters' relationships which is not entirely justifiable by their being inexperienced. It was especially disturbing that the character who seems to be based on Dr. Russell herself is allowed to receive the confessions of everyone else's sexual hangups and to moon embarrassingly over Emilio when he happens to be covered in blood, just as two lay characters, Sofia and Marc, moon rather embarrassingly over each other when they are covered in blood. The technical term for that sort of thing is UGH. Too much of the violence in this book (and there is a lot) has its own adolescent quality, a sort of grinning-through-bruises bravado, and it just isn't real.All this said, I didn't find "The Sparrow" as easy to dismiss as I sometimes wanted it to be. I was a long time puzzling over why, with so much talent, Dr. Russell fails in so many places. Perhaps the issues in this book are simply very difficult to dramatize well. They are grand Catholic themes, and anyone who wants to know how hard those are to get across can read Flannery O'Connor's "The Habit of Being." In her letters, O'Connor praised author after author for failing ambitiously in this regard, and it is in much the same spirit that I want to praise Dr. Russell for even trying. The instances in which her tone becomes prurient or cutesy may be blamed on her having found the issues harder to write about than anyone might have imagined, and succumbing to the same embarrassment that overtakes the reader in reading the results. Also, the commercial motive may have undermined the philosophical, which is nothing to be ashamed about but which is much more disastrous in popular literature with a theological element than anywhere else: the true-romance elements creep in that fast. (We've seen darkly handsome Jesuits endure terrible tortures and long for unavailable women before, after all.) There is enough that is appealing about this book to keep a more skeptical reader from begrudging any of its success. The reviews are all quite right about the power of its themes and the originality of its plot (which may, however, have been inspired by a newspaper article on the Vatican Observatory's interest in alien life). Dr. Russell has great promise as a writer of science fiction or non-genre fiction. It is possible that a sequel will improve on "The Sparrow" by leaving behind the "Star Trek" and Sacred Heart pastiche elements. If so, more power to Mary Doria Russell.
Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: First time author, Mary Russell has put together a masterpiece! I finished "Contact" just before picking up "Sparrow". Similar storylines, but no comparision in writing style - watch out Carl. This story relates the classic "alien meets boy" story line with a gripping story line and many twists and turns. I can't wait for her next one!
Rating:
Summary: To Xavier and beyond.
Review: This is another boonie dog book review by Wolfie and Kansas. We decided to read Maria Doria Russell's novel "The Sparrow" when we learned that it involved a Jesuit mission to another planet. We suspected there could be similarities with the actual early Jesuit missions to our part of the world. Sure enough, Father Emilio Sandoz, the lead character in "The Sparrow", had a year teaching at Xavier High School in Chuuk on his resume as a qualification for an interplanetary mission. We are also interested in fictional accounts about interaction between humans and other sentient species, since our species has been involved in such interactions with humans for several thousands of years. In "The Sparrow", the relations between the humans are more compelling than the relations between humans and the inhabitants of the planet Rakhat. This is a fantastic book, but the characterization and pacing did more to hold our interest than the science fiction elements. We wonder if "The Sparrow" would have been just as interesting if it had been written as an account of a Jesuit mission to Micronesia a few centuries ago.
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