The Sparrow: A Novel (The Sparrow series Book 1) Kindle Edition

Father Emilio Sandoz of the Society of Jesus has never considered himself to be a mystic or a saint. His faith is not founded in a "feeling" about God, or even in any kind of love for Him. Sandoz was attracted to the centeredness, the morality of the faith as a mere boy, when he was rescued from the slums of La Perla by a Texan Jesuit priest with a penchant for swearing and an eye for diamonds in the rough.So when first contact is made with an alien world in the neighboring galaxy of Alpha Centauri, and that first contact comes in the form of lovely, wistful, transcendent music, Father Sandoz is astounded and amused and intrigued. But when he and each of his closest friends turn out to have the precise skill sets required to make the journey out to this new world, he is shaken. And when, against all possible odds, Father Sandoz and those dearest to his heart land on that far away alien Garden of Eden just eighteen short months later, he is transported. For the first time, he feels, he has encountered and fallen in love with the Living God.But crossing languages, cultures, and species is a treacherous business. As missionaries throughout the millennia of human history have learned, the cost of leading the vanguard of discovery can be very, very high. How will a fledgling faith hold up in the face of loss and suffering and despair? Can we love a God who takes away as much as He gives, who is neither simple, predictable, or safe?Mary Doria Russell accomplished in her debut, award-winning novel what I thought was impossible in the modern age. She married the foremost theories of medicine and technology with one of the oldest and most rigidly structured religious faiths. She took atheist and Jesuit characters and treated each with the same honest affection, bound them together as a family unit, and then dissected them in a ruthless pursuit of literally "universal" truths. She did not shy away from a single charged, political question. She looked the reader in the face as she led us to an abyss we all recognize, but work very hard to ignore.I have a new favorite book, folks. And I am challenged, once again, to expand my own view of what's possible to achieve in fiction.

The less you know about the plot of this book going in, the better. I don’t think there’s any way my review will do this beautiful book justice, but I’ll give it a whirl.I will admit that I was wary about this whole Jesuit priest thing. Nothing against anyone’s faith – I just don’t tend to read many books where religion is prevalent. I was worried it would feel preachy or that I would feel isolated for not having the same views as the characters (why I thought this, I don’t know; it’s not like I’d feel isolated if reading about a barbarian because I have a non-barbaric lifestyle, I’m just silly like that.) That was certainly not the case. This was an exploration of one man’s faith and how the events of this mission affected his views on God.This is a haunting and poignant book and the end had me crying like a baby. The set up to this interplanetary mission is a slow one, I’ll warn you. The party doesn’t arrive on the planet until just about halfway through the book. However, I found it was worth the wait. The first half of the book builds up the characters, so when the plot picks up and things start happening, you care about these people.My only real issues with this book were how much it made my hands hurt (no, not from the weight of the book, but due to a certain scene which I think you’ll understand if you read it) and how willingly Emilio’s peers in Rome were willing to demonize him without really knowing what happened on the mission. I would think that having known him, they would have been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt – as a reader, once I was given some of his backstory, I was certainly willing to hear his side of the story before passing judgment. It was puzzling, but really, not a big issue.I can’t wait to read the sequel! If you’re looking for a character-driven sci-fi that explores faith and raises interesting social questions about what could occur if humans did make contact with other life forms, and you’re ready for some feels, then I highly, highly recommend this.

Look away, lest I spoil something for you.I enjoyed the book as "literary sci-fi," and I actually enjoyed the lack of focus on the technology in favor of focusing on the spiritual and moral dimensions of a first encounter. My enjoyment was ruined by the final 25 or so pages. The central character's trauma was centered around a moral ambiguity and we didn't need a sexual debasement to somehow accentuate that in the mind of the reader. It's as if the author gives no credit to the reader's understanding of everything that preceded those last pages. I was offended enough that I wouldn't read the sequel, nor would I read anything else by this author.

I am amazed that anyone would give anything but 5 stars. To me, it was one of the best books I have read. True, I am new to Science Fiction, but I have been an avid reader for 60+ years. If anyone is put off because it is about Jesuit priests, don't be. I think the book needed a religious hierarchy similar to the Jesuits. And these Jesuits are funny, sarcastic and risque. I have in the past enjoyed a book so much that as soon as I finished it I started reading it all over again. I plan to do this with The Sparrow.

This is a good book, not great. For me much of the 'chumminess' was a little nauseating, but I suppose it gave the characters some back story (something my wife hates). Definitely not like Stanislaw Lem.Ignoring the qualities of the book, which have been detailed scrupulously in other reviews, I just wanted to highlight the message I picked up very loud and clear. That message is echoed across the world of sci-fi, although the message is often diluted by the 'fun' of violence (such as 'Independence Day'), etc. In many ways this issues the same sort of warnings given out by the aforementioned Lem in wonderful books such as 'Solaris' (not as good as the Tarkovsky magnum opus however) and 'The Invincible'. We should stop our puny search for life 'out there', because when we find it it will be so alien that we cannot hope to understand it and any belief that we can will simply be a conceit. How could we possible understand an alien life-form any more than we can understand the workings of the universe? The word 'alien' is a clue in itself.In 'Solaris' it is very clear just how alien the alien is - after all, a sentient ocean is not the sort of alien that you could easily hang around with and trade with. However, 'The Sparrow' illustrates the danger of our conceit that we can understand something that looks vaguely similar to us and would appear, on the surface, to have understandable social structures. Clearly the humans were wrong on almost every level.As Lem noted in 'Solaris', 'We don't need other worlds. We need a mirror'. Exactly right, and films like 'Star Wars, et al, bear this out. We don't really want to meet something like the Solarian ocean, we want to meet a nice humanoid alien that we can have a bit of banter with and make ourselves feel better about our own somewhat isolated (in terms of the universe) situation. SETI should end now. Be careful what you wish for, as Kelvin, Snaut, Gibarian and Sartorius will tell you.

I read this over many, many nights; probably too many to give it justice. To begin with I found it tedious, not enjoying the two timelines at all. Then I laid off and read something else for a while. But the story kept nagging away at me. What happened to so break such a man as Emilio Sandoz and in such a brutal way. Why did everybody seem to despise him so? All I can say is; read to the end and risk having your heart ripped out.I don’t know if The Sparrow is fine literature but I believe it to be good storytelling in a way I wasn’t able to second-guess. The clues are all there but the denouement is still earth shattering.I have to read the sequel now...after a break to recover.Read to the end.

This is a difficult exploration of faith and fate, wonderfully easy to read but I walked through in trepidation. Following the story of a Jesuit priest who is the only survivor of a doomed mission to another planet, the story walls you through the steps that have brought you at last to this terrible and broken man. I found I had to read slowly, to better absorb each step. At the end, while this is an exploration of faith, I was left with the same questions as the lead charters, the same terrible, struggling agnosticism. I will be recommending this to everyone I meet!

On the TV news tonight, I heard that scientists have identified a planet in a distant star system with water and a temperature range capable of sustaining life. Imagine they had actually found proof of intelligent life! In the fictional 2019 of 'The Sparrow' (it was written in the 1990s), a radio signal from space is identified as music, prompting a private mission by the Jesuit organisation to find and contact the 'musicians'. From the outset, we know that the mission was a disaster and the one survivor, Father Sandos, returned to Earth, physically, emotionally and spiritually wrecked. Shifting timelines covering the planning of the mission, life on the planet, and, years later, the long process of discovering the truth, gradually reveal the misconceptions which led to tragedy, and to Sandos' loss of faith. The Sparrow was a spontaneous purchase in response to an Amazon offer. Sci-fi isn't my usual genre choice, but the interface between science and religion produces compelling story-telling and 'The Sparrow' is ultimately a very human story about a man whose bedrock beliefs are challenged by what happens to him. The title refers to the bird whose fall God may see, but does nothing to prevent. Serious and heartfelt -- the story and characters will definitely linger.

Abandoned and deleted at 70%.Awful smug characters who seem to sit about laughing hysterically at their own jokes.Ludicrous premise of Catholics in space.The dullest and most unfeasible aliensVery slim plot with lots of jumping about in time.Very limp character- driven sci-fi/ Religious propaganda. Like some self published Kindle Unlimited rubbish.