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 she should have paid more attention to the other characters. I felt like I barley got to know them from their parts in the book. The way the book is laid out is a bit confusing but I think it works well for this storyline. As confusing as this layout was I think that any other way she could have written it would have been even more confusing. .
Emilio Sandoz was a Jesuit priest. Jesuits are usually tried to be displayed as perfect, infallible people but not so much in this book. Father Sandoz struggled with issues such as maintaining his celibacy and having a part in causing the death of almost a whole civilization. Not everyone likes him all the time; they get mad at him. Page 109 has an example of this. Anne gets a little mad at Sandoz for bringing God into everything. It doesn't last long but for a minute I thought she was going to be mad for a while.
