Ashley Salter

May 3, 2004

So What’s That Sequel to The Sparrow Like?

(But Don’t Give Away Too Much!)

Russell, Mary Doria.  Children of God.  New York: Fawcett, 1998.

Plot

Emilio Sandoz starts to make a new life for himself on Earth.  When he refuses to return to Rakhat, some of his (former) Jesuit colleagues arrange to have him kidnapped and taken along on the mission anyway.  When they arrive, they find a much different Rakhat than the one Sandoz experienced on the first trip. 

The members of the original mission, the one related in The Sparrow, unintentionally did things that changed Rakhat dramatically.  Children of God is about the consequences of their actions.  The sequel is more focused on the people of Rakhat than The Sparrow was.  A major part of the plot involves the Runa revolting against and nearly eliminating the Jana’ata.

Theme

When asked about the themes of the sequel, Russell offered these comments contrasting her two novels: “The Sparrow was about the role of religion in the lives of many people, from atheist to mystic, and about the role of religion in history from the Age of Discovery to the Space Age.  I suppose that Children of God is about the aftermath of irreversible tragedy, about the many ways that we struggle to make sense of tragedy.”

Children

They are many children in Children of God.  Russell’s title undoubtedly refers to the idea that all of the species – humans, Runa, and Jana’ata – are God’s children.  As she pointed out in an interview, however, “The story begins with babies and ends with babies [. . .] even Cece the guinea pig has babies!”

Celestina –  a little girl that Sandoz meets in Italy

            She is a catalyst for Sandoz getting his life back together.

Isaac – autistic son of Sofia Mendes and Jimmy Quinn

            He’s a human child raised on Rakhat.  His fascination with music leads to the tidy             thematic wrap-up that closes the novel.

Ha’anala – Supaari’s daughter

            She resolves to eat only non-sentient species, and convinces a group of other Jana’ata to             do the same.  She is also determined not to rely on the Runa for anything that her species used     to expect from them such as weaving clothes.

 (Kanchay?) – a Runa

            Some of the younger Runa have new attitudes toward the Jana’ata.  They’ve become             aware that they don’t have to passively accept their former status as willing, complacent             prey for the Jana’ata.

Ariana Fiore and her son Tomasso

            (Slight spoiler – so ask if you want to know who exactly they are)

Praises

Russell creates new characters that readers will care about (Ha’anala, for example).  Characters introduced in The Sparrow continue to change and surprise the reader (Sofia, Supaari).  They may be stock characters, but they’re somehow captivating stock characters.

The plot has momentum.  The prose is lucid and flowing.  Like The Sparrow, this novel is a fast, mostly enjoyable, read.

Criticisms

In The Sparrow, Russell alternated smoothly between scenes on Earth and scenes on Rakhat.  She also managed the timeline impeccably, weaving together what happened before, during, and after the mission in a clear and interesting way.  In Children of God, the timeline becomes confusing, and the jumps in time and place can become frustrating to sort out.  (For example, there is a chapter that summarily covers fourteen years on Rakhat.  Another chapter, which covers the years 2070-2073 aboard the Giordano Bruno, jumps forward for a few pages to 2080 on Rakhat.)

The plot is very deliberate.  Like in The Sparrow, the story’s suspenseful moments are dangled in front of the reader for far too long.  For example, the new mission does not make landfall on Rakhat until page 364.  There are also some rather obvious plot devices such as Sandoz’s kidnapping and Isaac’s musical discovery.

“Global substitution”?  Russell admits that she drew on Romanov Russia to design the culture of Rakhat.  She suggests that the Runa revolution and the changed status of the Jana’ata are partially analogous to “the invasion of North America by Europeans.”  Ultimately, Children of God and The Sparrow explore faith and religion more than they explore a new world.