Children of God (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
From the acclaimed author of "The Sparrow" comes an imaginative novel featuring Father Emilio Sandoz and his quest for the secret of God's immortal plan.Product Details
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The abridged audio version of Mary Doria Russell's sequel to The Sparrow is read by actor Stephen Lang, of Last Exit to Brooklyn fame, whose deep, dramatic voice perfectly suits this tale full of loss and redemption, despair, and hope. Children of God continues the story of Father Emilio Sandoz, the Jesuit priest whose faith was brutally tested when he was maimed and raped, and witnessed the deaths of his friends on the faraway planet of Rakhat. Sandoz has begun the long, slow work of healing body and soul, finding some measure of happiness in his new life. He finds himself an unwilling member of a second mission to Rakhat, where survivor Sophia Mendez struggles to live in a world torn by genocidal strife between the Runa and Jana'ata. Children of God is a respectable sequel to a brilliant first novel, one that brings back and further develops beloved characters, and adds depth to an already thoroughly realized world. Lang perfectly captures each character, using flawless accents and a broad range of emotion to bring a new immediacy to the story. (Running time: five hours, four cassettes) --Therese Littleton
From Publishers Weekly
Russell follows her speculative first novel, The Sparrow, with a sequel that will please even readers new to her interplanetary missionaries. Having returned from a disastrous, 21st-century expedition to the planet Rakhat, Jesuit Father Emilio Sandoz, the sole survivor of the mission, faces public rage over the order's part in the war between the gentle Runa and the predatory Jana'ata?fury more than matched by the priest's own self-hatred and religious disillusionment. In the sequel, he is forced to return to Rakhat with a new expedition more interested in profits than prophets. When they discover the planet in turmoil and the Runa precariously in power, the temptation to interfere is more than they can withstand. As in her first book, Russell uses the entertaining plot to explore sociological, spiritual, religious, scientific and historical questions. Misunderstandings between cultures and people are at the heart of her story. It is, however, the complex figure of Father Sandoz around which a diverse interplanetary cast orbits, and it is the intelligent, emotional and very personal feud between Father Sandoz and his God that provides energy for both books. 50,000 first printing; BOMC selection; audio rights to Random House Audio; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Reader Stephen Lang brings each unique character alive with a brilliant grasp of dialect and nuance in this finely crafted sequel to The Sparrow (Villard, 1996). Emilio Sandoz is a priest and brilliant linguist who was crippled and sexually assaulted during a mission to Rakhat, a planet inhabited by two intelligent life forms, the Runa and the Jana'ata. Vowing never to return, Emilio quits the priesthood and finds peace, even love. He is kidnapped, however, and sent on a return mission, where he finds that the servant Runi are rebelling against the Jana'ata and the planet is consumed by unrest and savagery. Intertwined are other stories, including that of Sophia, a previously unknown survivor from the first mission, and Supaari, a Jana'ata who risks everything to protect his daughter who, in accordance with Jana'ata policy, should have been killed. Compelling and chilling, set in the not-too-distant 2060, Russell's novel immediately pulls the listener in and delivers.?Susan McCaffrey, Sturgis Middle Sch., MI
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Customer Reviews
I love this book!
I didn't want to put this book down. Very wonderful, thought provoking, and intense. I highly recommend it.
Poorly Written Characters Drag it Down
Children of God's theology is a bit better than The Sparrow, but the writing has also declined somewhat.
Again, Russell's writing has a good look at theodicy, offering one explanation for the problem of suffering: that in the large scheme, we don't know what God might be doing, but we can only see what he is putting together through the vantage point of great time and distance. And Children of God is an excellent investigation into how there is that of God in all people, no matter how evil; there is no one who is pure evil. Such a philosophy is just too simple. Even the worst of the first book do great things, even good things. And those we might be tempted to write off as mentally imperfect, take some of the greatest actions- a testimony against those who in short-sightedness misinterpret natural selection, trying to breed the perfect being, as the Runa do. Russell tells us that it is only through our imperfections that we advance and succeed.
My favorite kind of science fiction is investigating different cultures, even alien cultures, looking at how they interact, and thus gaining a greater perspective on ourselves. This Children of God does admirably. Russell looks at the Runa and the Jana'ata, and explores the Principle of Violent Mimicry, how we become that which we hate, with some rather profound implications for the current situation in the Middle East, as a people trained in Jewish ethics consider ethnic cleansing and near genocide of their former oppressors
But the negative aspects of this book are legion. It often felt like Russell was relying too often on miscommunication in order to move the plot forward, where, if only a couple people talked, then everything would have been worked out. This happened so often that I started to feel like I was reading the script of an 80s sitcom. And unlike The Sparrow, foreshadowing here is more telegraphing, giving away far too much far too early, so that I came to not care any longer about the story.
The story often felt like it was a bludgeon, an axe to grind against Christian beliefs. It was not at all realistic for the Pope to engage in certain despicable actions. It might have been if he had been written differently, but he is portrayed as an exceedingly kind man. The Christians just aren't written well. Jesuits are the primary characters, yet, unlike their history, there is absolutely no concern for evangelism, or even for the theology and mythology of the those of Rakhat. Runa and Jana'ata mythology and beliefs in the divine are discussed only circumspectly, as if the author wanted to avoid the subject entirely.
But the worst part of this book was the characterization. If I'd cared about the characters, I wouldn't have minded the plot being given away. If the characters were written well, it would have made sense for the Pope to do what he does. But I don't care, and it doesn't make sense. Character development in Children of God is incredibly weak. I really felt for the characters of The Sparrow; I hardly knew those of Children of God. I certainly didn't care if they lived or died. At the denouement, nothing makes sense, because the characters don't act in the manner in which they had been written. Sophia is satisfied with her life, eminently so, and a few days later she's extraordinarily bitter- with no explanation. Sadly, this hurts Russell's treatment of theodicy, for this part of the plot concerning Sophia is supposed to be the explanation for suffering, but it doesn't make sense- it felt tacked on. It is as if an answer needed to be written, and any answer would do.
Why read this book? Because you read The Sparrow, and enjoyed the story, but found it too depressing, and wanted some answers. You want the nightmares from The Sparrow to stop. Children of God will do that- it just won't bring you any beautiful dreams.
A HIGHLY INTELLIGENT TREATISE ON PERSONAL THEOLOGY - A TRUE CLASSIC
Theology can become a distant logical exercise of dry doctrine and easy theoretical conclusions. When it comes down to the wet choices of real life most such theoretical Theology is found wanting as it can offer only limited answers. This is Theology of the other kind, the real one.
Mary Doria Russell has created a highly intelligent story: what would the story of a future saint be? Say, a Jesuit spearheading an exploratory mission to an alien civilization as a linguist of unique abilities; a former outcast that found his true calling as a man of the Cloth and God's face in all the hungry he fed and all the orphans he sheltered and all the lost he bough back from desperation. And then God asked for more. Much more. Is God real or a mere human construct? Can Faith survive anything?
This is one of those books that stays with you for ever. Read THE SPARROW first, CHILDREN OF THE GOD later in order to enjoy them both more.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
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