The Sparrow

Author: Mary Doria Russell

Few debut novels since Neuromancer have had the impact that Mary Doria Russell achieved with The Sparrow. After this novel and its sequel, Children of God, she turned to writing historical fiction, which has led some to argue that The Sparrow is not science fiction (they prefer terms like â€œphilosophical fictionâ€), but in fact it is clearly and unequivocally sf, fitting into a long tradition that dates back to James Blish's A Case of Conscience, and continues to Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things. These are works in which science fiction is used to confront belief with reality, allowing us to test the nature of both. In The Sparrow a Jesuit priest is among the crew sent to an alien planet, from which transmissions of beautiful song have been detected. But failure to understand the nature of life on the planet when they arrive leads to tragedy. Everyone bar the priest is killed, and he is disfigured, enslaved and debased. Later, when he manages to get back to Earth, his debriefing reveals a crisis of faith that brings into question everything about how the powerful relate to the powerless, and about how our beliefs affect how we choose to interpret the things we see. Why it's on the list: The power of the novel is reflected in the fact that it won the James Tiptree Award, the BSFA Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award as well as the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Books in The Sparrow Series (1)

Children Of God