The_Sparrow

The Sparrow The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is a combination of science fiction, religion and complete fantasy. The story is about a Jesuit led mission to Alpha Centauri, a planet that sound signals (SETI) have been being gathered from. The sounds were beautiful. The Jesuits thought of them as praises of God and decided that if there were children of God somewhere out there then it was their job to go find them. Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit priest, and seven others (none of them astronauts) climb aboard a hollowed out asteroid that they named Stella Maris to go to the planet. First they are welcomed on planet Rakhat but they welcoming doesn’t last long. Problems occurred when Runa and Jana’ata, the two species of aliens, had problems. The mission ends with everyone that went on it dead, except Emilio. I think that Russell did a good job developing Emilio however; I don’t feel she did as good of a job as she could have developing the rest of the characters. Emilio was the main character so I do feel it was important to develop him and use more detail than used for the rest of the characters but I do think sparrow, book, think, out, jesuit, didn’t, sandoz, people, mission, good, god, go, emilio, characters, written, way, sure, religion, planet, mad, job, don’t, confusing, about, whole, true, time, thought, things, species, science, russell, rest, really, problems, priest, perfect