book 2 of The Sparrow Series

by Mary Doria Russell

isbn: 0375402195
subject: SF, Fiction and Literature
finished: 4/26/1998

This book retains and expands on the elements that made its predecessor, The Sparrow, good: it's a study of religion, space exploration, interacting cultures, and interpersonal relationships. In Children of God, Emilio Sandoz finds himself on a second mission to Rakhat, to pacify the Church and to come to terms with the events that ruined his life.

At the end of the first book the aliens were very much a mystery, and this is how I prefer them; Children of God explains the Jana'ata and the Runa too well, and worse, has them acting just like humans. Besides that and the fact that's it's somewhat anticlimactic compared to The Sparrow, Children of God is a good book, and is certainly better than most SF.