The Sparrow (novel)

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**Title** **The Sparrow**
Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	Mary Doria Russell
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Villard
Released	1996
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	408 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-679-45150-1
Followed by	Children of God

The Sparrow (1996) is the first novel by science fiction author Mary Doria Russell. It won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, James Tiptree, Jr. Award and the British Science Fiction Association Award. It was followed by a sequel, Children of God, in 1998.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The novel begins in the year 2019, when the SETI program, at the Arecibo Observatory, picks up radio broadcasts of music from the vicinity of Alpha Centauri. The first expedition to Rakhat, the world that is sending the music, is organized by the Jesuit order.

Only one of the crew, Father Emilio Sandoz, survives to return to Earth, and he is damaged physically and psychologically. The story is told in framed flashback, with chapters alternating between the story of the expedition and the story of Sandoz' interrogation by the Vatican inquest, set up in 2059 to find the truth. Sandoz' return has sparked great controversy -- not just because the Jesuits sent the mission independent of United Nations oversight, but also because the mission ended disastrously. Contact with the UN mission, which sent Sandoz back to Earth alone in the Jesuit ship, has since been lost.

From the beginning, Sandoz, a talented linguist born in a Puerto Rican slum, had believed the mission to Rakhat was divinely inspired. Several of his close friends and co-workers, people with a variety of unique skills and talents, had seemingly coincidental connections to Arecibo and one of them, a gifted young technician, was the first to hear the transmissions. In Sandoz's mind, only God's will could bring this group of people with the perfect combination of knowledge and experience together at the moment when the alien signal was detected. These were the people who, with three other Jesuit priests, were chosen by the Society of Jesus to travel to the planet, using an interstellar vessel made out of a small asteroid.

Sandoz tells about how the asteroid flew to the planet Rakhat, and how the crew tried to acclimatize themselves to the new world, experimenting with eating local flora and fauna, then making contact with a rural village -- a small-scale tribe of vegetarian gatherers, clearly not the singers of the radio broadcasts. Still, welcomed as 'foreigners', they settle among the natives and begin to learn their language and culture, transmitting all their findings via computer uplink to the asteroid-ship now orbiting above the planet. An emergency use of fuel for their landing craft leaves them stranded on the planet.

When they do meet a member of the culture which produced the radio transmissions, he proves to be of a different (although related) species from the rural natives. An ambitious merchant, he sees in the visitors a possibility to improve his status, while the crew hope to find an alternative source of fuel in the merchant's city. Meanwhile, the crew begin to grow their own food, introducing the concept of gardening to the villagers. These seemingly innocent actions and accompanying cultural misunderstandings set into motion the events which lead to the murder of all but Sandoz, and his capture and degradation.

Sandoz returned to Earth, his friends gone and his faith in God shattered. Due to relativistic effects, decades had passed while he had been gone, during which popular outrage at the UN's initial and highly out-of-context report on the mission, and especially Sandoz' role in the tragedy, had left the Society shattered and nearly extinct. As Sandoz painfully explains what really happened, his personal healing can begin, but only time will prove whether the same is true of the Society.

Children of God, the sequel to this novel, explains many of the reasons behind the seemingly disturbing events. A central theme is the ways in which misunderstandings between well-intentioned people can lead to tragedy. [1]

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

This article or section contains information about one or more scheduled or expected films. The content may change as the film's release approaches and more information becomes available.

In March 2006 it was announced that Warner Bros. had purchased the rights to The Sparrow for Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B, and that Pitt himself would be playing the role of Sandoz. [2]