The Sparrow

by Mary Doria Russell | Science Fiction & Fantasy |
ISBN: 0552997773 Global Overview for this book
Registered by Nell-Lu of Edinburgh, Scotland United Kingdom on 7/21/2006
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15 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by Nell-Lu from Edinburgh, Scotland United Kingdom on Friday, July 21, 2006
Wow! Really good new(-ish) science fiction!

I thought this book was great. It's character-led SF, using the old trick of examining our own culture and motivations through contrast with an alien culture. It's set in a recognisible, plausible, near-future.

The starting point is that humankind discovers evidence of ET intelligence in transmissions recognisable as music. The first people to act on this evidence are the Society of Jesus, who send a mission to make contact. As the prologue says, "They meant no harm". Unfortunately, we all know where good intentions lead - things go horribly, but inevitably, wrong.

I found the characters to be believable and interesting. In places it is harrowing to read about their experiences - and not just during the mission; Sofia's back story doesn't make comfortable reading. There are a few places where the plot or science is a little far-fetched, but as the focus is on the people I didn't find this mattered. The only weakness is that the drama of the ending didn't quite work for me. We know the outcome of the expedition from the first few pages, but we don't find out what actually happened until the end. But, because I empathised strongly with the main character, Emilio Sandoz, the events revealed didn't come as a surprise - they matched the assumptions I'd made about his behaviour.

Overall I really enjoyed this. Many thanks to lmn60 for making me aware of this book. I'm now trying to decide whether to get hold of the sequel: it will probably be disappointing, but I'm not sure I can resist.

Journal Entry 2 by Nell-Lu from Edinburgh, Scotland United Kingdom on Saturday, September 2, 2006
I'm sending this surface mail to efs300 as a RABCK. Enjoy!

Journal Entry 3 by efs300 from -- By post or by hand --, South Carolina USA on Saturday, September 9, 2006
Thanks so much for the RABCK and the beautiful card. I just started a bookring book and don't have any other so this one will be next on my TBR pile. I look forward to reading it and thanks so much for thinking of me.

Journal Entry 4 by efs300 from -- By post or by hand --, South Carolina USA on Monday, October 16, 2006
I finished this book over the weekend. This was an excellent book, one of the best books that I have read this year. The story line of meeting an alien race is far from unique, having The Jesuits send the first mission out to Rakhat was a great plot line. I really enjoyed the storyline, writing style and characters. As Nell-Lu said its set in a recognizable, plausible, near-future which makes it all that more enjoyable.

I just placed a bid on a used copy of the sequel 'Children of God' on eBay. So I may be reading the sequel soon so Nell-Lu if you have not bought it yet wait and I will send it to you.
I noticed that there are a bunch of people who have this on their wish list so perhaps I will start a bookray for this book.
Nell-Lu thanks again for sending me this book, I really enjoyed it!

Journal Entry 5 by efs300 from -- By post or by hand --, South Carolina USA on Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Will be offering as an international bookray, will list participants here. It's a trade paperback edition, from the UK, 502 pages. Forum post announcing bookray.

Please sign the 'bookray travels' label on the inside back cover!

Participants:
  1. andersor (San Francisco, California USA - Ship USA Only)
  2. Wistroll (Milltown, Wisconsin USA - Ship USA Only)
  3. sarradee (Ovilla, Texas USA - Prefers to ship within US/Canada but will ship Int.)
  4. nancydotslash (Dalhart, Texas USA - Ship International)
  5. Charlieboots76 (Bournemouth, UK - Ship International)
  6. PDB11 (Coalville, Leicestershire UK - Ship International)
  7. Annelis (Kerava, Uusimaa Finland - Ship International)
  8. nyassa (Winchester, Hampshire United Kingdom - Prefers to ship within Europe)
  9. etherea (Little Rock, Arkansas USA - Ship International)
  10. rooshill (Foresthill, California USA - Ship USA Only)
  11. olered (Salem, Oregon USA - Ship International)<----- In the Mail To
  12. vexter (Ljubljana, Slovenia - Ship International)
  13. malagan (Rijswijk, Zuid-Holland Netherlands - Ship International)
  14. nuriayasmin (Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg Germany - Ship International)
  15. BellaMack (St Helens, Tasmania Australia - Ship Australia Only)
Bookray instructions (Copied from catsalive):
1. SIGN UP for this bookray by sending me a Private Message. Order of participants will be juggled between geography, date of request and shipping limitations. Late additions may be added to the end of the list.
2. When the person before you on the list finishes reading the book, they will send you a Private Message for your postal address. If you no longer wish to read it, or wish to be moved in the list let them (and me!) know and I will move you down/off the list.
3. WHEN YOU RECEIVE THE BOOK please make a journal entry so everyone knows it has safely arrived. Bookrays should NOT be stressful, take your time and enjoy the book. Just make sure it gets mailed on to the next person.
4. WHEN YOU FINISH THE BOOK, make another journal entry telling us what you thought - did you like it? Did you think it was well-written?
5. CONTINUE THE BOOKRAY by sending a Private Message to the person after you on the bookring list and request their postal address. Please check back here for the latest distribution list. If the person doesn't respond within 7-10 days (use your judgement), please PM the next person, and then me, so I can update the bookray list.
6. END OF THE RAY, The last person on the ray could try and continue the ray or just give/mail the book to someone else who might like to read it, an RABCK perhaps, look at cliff1976.com wish list web site or release it into the wild.

A note about shipping:

As this is a bookray and the book will not return to me it does not matter how long it takes this book to make its way from person to person. So I would insist that when shipping this book please use the most inexpensive shipping method available to you, ESPECIALLY when shipping this book internationally.

Journal Entry 6 by efs300 from -- By post or by hand --, South Carolina USA on Thursday, October 26, 2006
Mailed today to andersor to begin this bookray, enjoy!

Journal Entry 7 by andersor from San Francisco, California USA on Monday, November 6, 2006
Received in today's mail! I am in the middle of another bookring, but I will get to this one as soon as I can.
Thanks for sharing!

Journal Entry 8 by andersor from San Francisco, California USA on Saturday, November 25, 2006
I loved this! The story was well written and very interesting.
I will sent it on to Wistroll as soon as I get an address.

12/4 - Sorry for the delay. I sent this out today.

Journal Entry 9 by Wistroll from Centuria, Wisconsin USA on Thursday, December 7, 2006
Arrived safely. I do have 3 rings/rays ahead of this, but being they take priority and look very good, it shouldn`t take too long.

Journal Entry 10 by Wistroll from Centuria, Wisconsin USA on Tuesday, December 19, 2006
I also loved this book!
I am not an eager pleaser when it comes to the sci-fi(ish) genre and this book may just have changed my mind about reading a few others I`ve questioned.

I will be thinking about the characters of this story for quite some time and also hope to get my hands on and not be disappointed by the sequel (Of which is at my local library).
Thanks so much for including me in this ray, I am so glad I had the opportunity to read this!

Will be mailing out hopefully Thursday, on my errand day to sarradee.

Released 17 yrs ago (12/28/2006 UTC) at Controlled Release in Milltown, A Bookcrossing member -- Controlled Releases

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

Off to sarradee!

Journal Entry 12 by sarradee from Mansfield, Texas USA on Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Arrived safely today. Amazingly enough I don't have any other ring/rays here at the moment, so as soon as I'm done with the book I'm reading...

Journal Entry 13 by sarradee from Mansfield, Texas USA on Monday, January 8, 2007
This book was wonderful! When I signed up I was a little hesitant even though it had received such great reviews because of religious content. I soon discovered that I had nothing to fear, the author handled her subject matter in a non-prostelytizing manner.

I loved the way the author bounced back and forth between the failed expedition and main character Emilio Sandoz's return to Earth. That allowed her to keep an element of suspense while telling the story, but also give the reader a window into the end result of the expedition. Early on she told us what, but you had to keep reading to figure out why and how.

I'm looking forward to finding a copy of Children of God to find out what happens next. I mailed to NancyDotSlash this morning, and it should be there soon, in Texas terms we're practically neighbors.

Journal Entry 14 by rem_XNE-725303 on Saturday, January 13, 2007
Arrived in mailbox today! Thank you, we're having ice/snow, and is marvelous to have a promising new book to curl up with!

Journal Entry 15 by rem_XNE-725303 on Monday, January 22, 2007
I was very pleased for the privilege to read this in a Ray, as I enjoy and look forward to reading all the opinions and everyone's takes on a book.

This is an anthropological comment on first contact. It also deals with a crisis of faith, God's providence, the experience of evil and suffering.
We all know from History that the best of intentions, and even a supposed mandate from God, can have horrifying consequences. Countless SciFi stories have already been done on this theme and I found nothing very "new" or different, IMHO.
I would have liked the characters to be a bit less shallow, and although they were likeable, I felt some of their mistakes to be too silly for their supposed intelligence, some elements of the tale to be too easy, -too "pat", plus I was disappointed in the end as sort of anti-climactic. I don't mean to give the impression that I didn't like the book, I did.... its just not the greatest I've read or even in the top 25% of SciFi I've experienced, therefore I feel the critical acclaim is somewhat over the top.
I take pleasure in good SciFi, and if you do, I recommend Margaret Atwood, Greg Bear, or Arthur C. Clark among many others, or on the theme of crisis in faith, perhaps Shusaku Endo's masterpiece "Silence."
Thank you for sharing this book, it will be on it's way to Charlieboots76 when I get the addy........

edited for cut and paste mistakes made when transferring to my journal entry - someone pointed it out to me and now it makes more sense! Sorry....

Journal Entry 16 by Charlieboots76 from Ringwood, Hampshire United Kingdom on Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Thanks nancydotslash, I recieved the book about a week ago got reading it and forgot to journal! Anyway I have now finished it and really enjoyed it. The first half seemed to go slowly and the second half seemed to rush by. The authour just wasn't describing everyrhing in as much detail as before. Still it was an excellent story.

Many thanks to Ed for starting the 'ray, I will post onto PDB11 when I get the address.

Journal Entry 17 by Charlieboots76 from Ringwood, Hampshire United Kingdom on Friday, March 2, 2007
The book is now on its way to PDB11, thanks again efs300!

Journal Entry 18 by PDB11 from Oakhill, Somerset United Kingdom on Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Book has arrived safely. Many thanks!

I've a couple of books on the go at the moment, including another ring book that's going rather slowly, but I'll put this on my pile to read soon.

Journal Entry 19 by PDB11 from Oakhill, Somerset United Kingdom on Monday, June 18, 2007
First I must apologise for taking three months to get around to reading this. (In my last entry I said there was a ring book going rather slowly. I haven't finished that one yet - I'm about twice as far into it as I was then.

Anyway I hope I'll manage to get Nyassa's address (she's moved since I last sent her anything) this week and send the book on this weekend.

The book itself was really good. In fact I would cite it as the only really good novel of first contact with a Christian perspective that I've read. The structure of the book, which I found strange at first, I now think rather clever: however the viewpoint and timeline shifts around, we get the information in the order it would have been revealed to someone sitting in on the Jesuits' panel of inquiry; and yet Emilio Sandoz remains the protagonist throughout.

(And I would add that it is to MDR's credit that she doesn't attempt to answer the question of the fall and redemption, and how these applie to extraterrestrials, except that the Jana'ata are clearly just as fallen as we are.)

The heart of the story is Emilio's personal and spiritual development, and MDR portrays this very well indeed. As a Christian myself, I believe that all Christians are called to a greater or lesser extent to follow the way of the Cross, and we all must arrive eventually at "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?". How we get through this stage is different for each of us, and difficult to describe; although I don't think how Emilio gets through would work for me, it works for the book, even if it does give it a slightly hurried ending.

Finally there's one more thing I want to share, and I'm not sure where to share it; here will do for now. On Friday night, I had read perhaps a fifth of the book; and I had also been reading an article in Nature about an ancient ocean on Mars. In my dreams, the two got rather confused, and gave me a very strange idea for an alien creature. This creature encircles the globe, or part of it, like a ribbon - I think it inhabits a rather smaller planet than Earth - and a reasonable population makes quite a tangle around the planet. These ribbon-like creatures resemble beaches around the edges of large oceans (that must have come from the Nature article); the landing party from Earth managed to kill one of them by trying to land on a beach and thereby cutting through the ribbon (I think this came from the murder of which Emilio is accused in The Sparrow. I'm not sure how to develop the idea from there, but I think it needs something...

Journal Entry 20 by PDB11 from Oakhill, Somerset United Kingdom on Monday, July 23, 2007
I have finally despatched the book on its way to Annelis. Airmail, because when airmail is £4.20 and surface £4.16, there's not much saving to be made...

And Nyassa has also contacted me to say she wants the books! I suggest that she should be next after Annelis.

Journal Entry 21 by wingAnneliswing from Kerava, Uusimaa / Nyland Finland on Sunday, August 5, 2007
The book had arrived while I was in Barcelona. Thank you! I will read it as soon as possible.

Journal Entry 22 by wingAnneliswing from Kerava, Uusimaa / Nyland Finland on Sunday, October 7, 2007
This book was quite different from what I thought it would be. It was not a book which I could read quickly through as it is about so deep things. It is a book which makes you think.
I remember when I was 11-13 years old that I liked to read books about space travel and I was sure I would go one day myself. Later I realized it would be too lonely a trip for me. Distant planets still fascinates me even though I would not like to visit them.
At first I was confused as the story jumped back and forth in time. I wonder if that constuction was necessary for the story. A good story anyway.
I'll ask Nyassa for the address and post this and start reading the next story.

Journal Entry 23 by nyassa from Deal, Kent United Kingdom on Monday, October 22, 2007
Arrived safely this morning, thank you Annelis. I have a few chapters of another book to finish, and then it will be next.

Journal Entry 24 by wingethereawing from Little Rock, Arkansas USA on Friday, March 7, 2008
This arrived safely and is next up on the TBR stack. I'll journal again and pm the next on the list when I finish.

Journal Entry 25 by wingethereawing from Little Rock, Arkansas USA on Sunday, March 30, 2008
Whew! What an amazing book! I'm not a big fan of the sci-fi genre, but certain books can win me over. This was one. I couldn't wait to finish it, but didn't want it to end.
Knowing the outcome of the mission at the beginning was interesting. MDR spends so much time developing her characters and I found myself getting to like some of them while knowing that something bad was going to happen to them. I agree with Nell-Lu that the characters were believable and interesting, and that in places it is harrowing to read about their experiences. The end was not a complete surprise--I also had made certain assumptions about Sandoz character.
I've pm'ed Rooshill for an address.

Journal Entry 26 by wingethereawing from Little Rock, Arkansas USA on Saturday, April 5, 2008
I appreciated the chance to read this. I often shy away from science fiction and probably wouldn't have read it if I was not a BCer. I'll be thinking about it for a while.
I mailed this to rooshill today by media mail.

Journal Entry 27 by rooshill from Grass Valley, California USA on Thursday, April 24, 2008
I got this book last week but I'm a big jerk and didn't journal right away - sorry! LIfe's been like that and I haven't been on the computer. I've started reading it already and liking it so far, though took a couple of times flipping back and forth to get the hang of the time frame changes. will update when I'm through

Journal Entry 28 by rooshill from Grass Valley, California USA on Tuesday, May 13, 2008
This is shipping in the morning to olered. I just realized I hadn't done my JE! Loved this book, hope to get my hands on the sequel. I was a little unsure at first with the heavy religious stuff - I tend to shy away from that - especially not being a Christian, but it was very well done - exploratory and not preachy. I liked that there was a Jewish character and an atheist as well as the Catholics.
The author does a wonderful job of stringing the reader along with the suspenseful, back and forth telling of details. I found myself fidgeting to get back to the book whenever I had to put it down. The very ending was a little anticlimactic, but I'm not sure where else I would have wanted it to go. Great characters - too bad we won't see most of them in the next book!

side notes:
PDB11 - your ribbon creature idea is interesting; I wonder did you ever go any further with it?

Lots of us have noted wanting to read the sequel - have any of the previous journalers acquired a copy they'd like to send out on a ring or ray?

Journal Entry 29 by olered from Salem, Oregon USA on Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The Sparrow has arrived. I just started another book but this one is next up. Thanks.

Journal Entry 30 by olered from Salem, Oregon USA on Thursday, June 19, 2008
This was a very good book. I loved the writing style....and while science fiction is not usually my genre I certainly did enjoy this. Possibly it wasn't too far removed from our own world. It's ending is very haunting and will be with me a while. Thanks for the opportunity to read this and broaden my horizon efs300.

Mailed 7-3-08 to Slovenia............

Journal Entry 31 by vexter from Ljubljana, Osrednja Slovenija - Okolica Ljubljane in Ljubljana Slovenia on Tuesday, July 22, 2008
It's here! Thank you! It's a good thing I'm on vacation, so I'll have time to read. :D

Journal Entry 32 by vexter from Ljubljana, Osrednja Slovenija - Okolica Ljubljane in Ljubljana Slovenia on Saturday, August 2, 2008
Woah. I hate it when books let me know that something horrible happened, but then leave me imagining what exactly it was until the very end. I was reading this over 5 days that I spent completely alone in the house. Let's just say it was a very spooky experience. ;) But seriously, this is a very, very good book. Thank you for sharing it!

Sent a PM to malagan, will send the book as soon as I get an address.
Edit: sent on August 4th!

Journal Entry 33 by wingmalaganwing from Zutphen, Gelderland Netherlands on Friday, August 8, 2008
Received today by mail, thanks for sending it vexter. I will read it soon!

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