Rating: 
Summary: Satisfying sequel makes a brilliant pair
Review: Like many readers, I found The Sparrow to be one of the most moving and exciting Science Fiction books to come out in recent memory. I almost did not want to read the sequel because I was afraid that it was going to be a disappointment.
While perhaps Children of God is not as original as The Sparrow, it is not (I am relieved to say) a disappointment. It picks up the themes that were explored so well in the first book and develops them in a number of new and satisfying ways. Rakhat is considerably more developed, as is the interspecies conflict between the Runa and the Jana'ata. As in the first book, Russell uses a sure and blessedly light hand to link the events on the two planets to the long-standing moral issues that have concerned humanity.
There are weaknesses in the Children of God that are largely tied to the Earth side of the story. A few of the less necessary characters have the unfortunate feel that they exist simply to move the plot along. Since Russell uses so few cliches in her writing, it unfortunately hits a very sour note on the few occasions where her talent for writing character fails. It did not need stock bad guys or good guys to make it a success. The book also did not need the dramatic 'reward' offered at the end by Isaac and his discovery. The hand of God would have been clear enough in the unfolding events on Rakhat, and additional proof felt unnecessary. Not bad, but unnecessary.
Properly speaking, this book would probably be rated four stars rather than five. However, there are so few writers working with this level of inventiveness. For that reason, and for the strength of the two books taken together, I am rating it as five stars.
Rating: 
Summary: consider not reading it
Review: this is not a bad book. however, the sparrow is a great book, and this one does not do it justice. there are some interesting ideas in it, but all in all i would rather have been left at the end of the sparrow than had this addition to the story. the biggest flaw is the way she takes sandoz to rakhat; also, this book doesn't have the moral weight of the sparrow and the resolution is a little too pat.
Rating:
Summary: I Love finding a new writer
Review: I brought both this and its prequal The Sparrow second hand on the off chance that if I didn't like it I would not be spending big money. I could not put them down! I read The Sparrow and continued onto The Children of God in quick succession.Russell writes with an easy prose which makes you want to read more. With every situation the reader is dragged further into see what will happen next. The philosophical questions raised in both books have had me thinking since I finished reading them, and my friends and family are now under instruction to read them so I can have someone to discuss them with. I have thought a lot about what similar situation may have existed here at the time when Neanderthal and HomoSapiens shared the planet. A message to May Doria Russell - PLEASE WRITE MORE!!!
Rating:
Summary: Such a BIG story . . . .
Review: The book `Children of God' is the sequel to Mary Doria Russell's award winning first novel, `The Sparrow'. In this we take up once again with Father Emilio Sandoz, the only survivor of a doomed expedition to a nearby planet, set in the not-to-distant future. (Please see reviews of `The Sparrow' for a little more detail about that.) Most of the characters from the first novel have died (in this novel we discover how a few of the missing people from the first expedition met their fates), and due to the effects of near-light-speed travel, many decades have passed on earth while Father Emilio is still relatively young. There are political crises on earth, including a crisis in the church, and there seems to be an urgent need for yet another expedition to Rakhat. In the interim, there have been several attempted journeys, all of which have failed. The church hierarchy decides that the only 'successful' trip was that of Father Emilio, and thus decides (largely without his consent) to send him off again. At the same time, Rakhat has undergone a dramatic change, brought about in part by the arrival of the strangers, but also due to the political schemings of members of the dominant race, the Jana'ata. The Runa, always larger in population, begin to realise their oppressive situation, aided by renegade Jana'ata, and a civil war breaks loose. Into this situation the human expedition re-enters the scene on Rakhat. This story completes many of the unfinished details from `The Sparrow'. By filling in the blanks while also carrying the narrative forward, Russell's rather dark picture of the nature of God in the universe (as enacted by the creatures on earth and elsewhere) becomes a little lighter, a little more just, a little less doomed. There is, however, no answer to the personal injustices, to Father Emilio's abuse both at the hands of the Jana'ata and the Jesuit order. Russell's development of the characters, both human and alien, deepens and broadens in this second novel; her imaginative history of the alien cultures is quite stunning, and her treatment of the strengths and weakness in human character insightful. Read `The Sparrow' and `Children of God' back-to-back if at all possible.
Rating: 
Summary: Hardly a masterpiece
Review: I read The Sparrow and was impressed. Children of God, however, doesn't come close at all. The story bounces around so much that I could not keep track of where and when things were happening. I did not finish it. Two Thumbs Down.
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