The Sparrow

After the first exquisite songs were intercepted by radio telescope, UN? diplomats debated long and hard whether and why human resources should be expended in an attempt to reach the world that would become known as Rakhat. In the Rome offices of the Society of Jesus, the questions were not whether or why but how soon the mission could be attempted and whom to send. The Jesuit scientists went to Rakhat to learn, not to proselytize. They went so that they might come to know and love God's other children. They went for the reason Jesuits have always gone to the farthest frontiers of human exploration. They went for the greater glory of God.

They meant no harm.

Essential

The Sparrow is a novel that divides opinion. It is lauded for being a character-based SF? novel; it is derided for getting the science wrong. It is praised for a gut-wrenching final-act revelation; it is criticised for the improbability of the act involved. The obvious comparison novel is James Blish's A Case Of Conscience, but there's a crucial difference. The Sparrow is written with the traditional concerns of the mainstream novel front and centre. It comes from outside the ghetto.

The themes of the novel are big ones. Faith, humanity, redemption: You get the idea. And I think it almost all works, and works wonderfully. The characters are memorable and sympathetic; the telling is warm when it needs to be, and harsh where it has to be. It's a long book, but extremely readable.

In fact this is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the defining SF? novels of the 1990s. It should be read as such.

-- Niall Harrison? 12/01/2004