The Sparrow

By: Mary Doria Russell

Narrated by: David Colacci

Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

A visionary work that combines speculative fiction with deep philosophical inquiry, The Sparrow tells the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a scientific mission entrusted with a profound task: To make first contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. The mission begins in faith, hope, and beauty, but a series of small misunderstandings brings it to a catastrophic end.

©2008 Mary Doria Russell (P)2008 Brilliance Audio

Critic reviews

“A startling, engrossing, and moral work of fiction.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“Important novels leave deep cracks in our beliefs, our prejudices, and our blinders. The Sparrow is one of them.” (Entertainment Weekly)

“Powerful...The Sparrow tackles a difficult subject with grace and intelligence.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

An Emotional Rollercoaster of Brilliance

such a great author and epic of human struggle that leaves you yearning for the unfathomable ending.

Faith in the face of the unknown

Great novel both a Sci fi novel but also an exploration of human's need for faith, love, companionship and purpose. An examination of other worlds both the Jesuits their mission and history and Rakat a planet with intelligent ET life. Captivating a very character and human focused piece of science fiction that I believe it will appeal to both hardcore Scifi lovers and those who usually stay away from intergalactic travel.

A Complex Tale

Hard to read but very rewarding. The characters are superb, the story builds slowly and becomes captivating. Enthralling, sad but somewhat inspiring ... I was moved.

Religion or Porn

This is my first experience with Mary Doria Russell. The book was recommended by a friend who read both The Sparrow and Children of God. Initially the frequent changes from past to future made it difficult to follow the thread of the story. This continued throughout the book and the manner in which the changes were made was very disconcerting to me. The story held a lot of promise for me initially because I really liked the characters as they developed. I'm not a prude by any stretch but as the character of Anne developed and so much of her character was about her sex life and discussion and thoughts with the priest it just didn't seem to be really connected to the story; like a movie that has more sex thrown in to sell more tickets. The sexual discussion and the big part it played in the tragedy of the main character and his rape along with extensive focus on sex lives of the aliens seemed to be at the loss of further development of the story and other characters.
The book spends about 2/3 of its focus in character development and about 1/3 on it's ending of the lives of the main characters after they have arrived at their destination. Overall I was disappointed and am not a fan of Ms. Russell's writing style. I do plan on listening to Children of God that I have already purchased. The storyteller was difficult to hear at times when the voice lowered and also seemed to increase reading speed during the last few chapters. The overall audio quality was the poorest I have ever experienced on an audible book.

Great story, sound engineering is not great

The narrator did a great job with voices and emotion. But some sentences, described as barely audible, were made to be, in fact, barely audible. I had to rewind and crank the volume to catch them and then the following sentence would be far too loud.

Takes a while to get going, but worth it in the end

Wasn’t sure if I’d like this book after listening for a couple of hours. At first, there’s not much conflict or foreshadowing as the author establishes character relationships. It’s hard to see where the story is going. It quickly becomes clear, though, so stick with it for a superb finish. The voice actor does a wonderful job with the various characters and accents.

wow...intense

A little slow in getting going but an original story and worthwhile listen. Excellent narration!

Long time getting there

This is a good story, the characters grapple with some of humanity’s most persistent and troubling problems. The basis of good and evil, why bad things happen to good people, God’s involvement (or lack thereof) in individual lives, etc. are some of the issues which are presented and examined from various perspectives. However, the book is at least twice as long as is needed. The storyline tends to get bogged down in all the extra material - like characters who take up a lot of ink but do not advance the story, and all the characters’ ultra-extensive background histories. I believe that a lot of the material is in there to provide a link to the next book, but I’ve had enough. I’ll pass on the sequel.

Amazing story that is also science fiction

This novel is short on technology trinkets and physics, but it is rich in world building. Wonderful conception of alien life, and the characters are profound. This is the only science fiction I have read that deals with faith, religion, and deep human emotion above the hackneyed attempts and juvenile philosophizing typical in sci fi. The story starts slow but comes together in a soul-cringing way.

Really good but very sad.

It was well researched, thoughtful, and compelling, but holy sad pandas Batman. Worth the read. But seriously, you will cry a lot.