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4.16 AVERAGE
4.16 AVERAGE
In March of 2019, Emilio Sandoz is a young Jesuit priest who by chance befriends an older couple, Anne & George Edwards. Jimmy Quinn becomes part of this group through his association with George. Their work is monitoring the universe, searching for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.
At random, in the middle of the night, on an August evening later that year, Jimmy hears a signal he interprets as a song from a distant planet. Suddenly there is excitement and surprisingly plans are made to visit the source of the song which is light years away. Emilio’s background in linguistics has introduced him in the past to Sofia Mendes, a beautiful academic whose expertise ranges from language to physics and beyond. She surfaces again in his life when she is hired to work with Jimmy and George. This group of five is joined by three others, Marc Robichaux, a naturalist and artist; D.W. Yarbrough a former marine and Texan Jesuit, and Father Alan Pace. These eight, some unwittingly, become the crew of the Stella Maris whose mission is to visit the distant planet, to learn their language, understand their way of life, and to convert their inhabitants.
In 2059, Emilio has returned to Earth, alone. The Vatican is desperate to understand what happened on Rakhat, but Emilio is a shell of his former self, unable and unwilling to discuss his experience.
Not typically my genre, but this book is inventive, interesting and weird all at the same time. I thoroughly enjoyed the humor Russell inserted into the camaraderie between the companions.
At random, in the middle of the night, on an August evening later that year, Jimmy hears a signal he interprets as a song from a distant planet. Suddenly there is excitement and surprisingly plans are made to visit the source of the song which is light years away. Emilio’s background in linguistics has introduced him in the past to Sofia Mendes, a beautiful academic whose expertise ranges from language to physics and beyond. She surfaces again in his life when she is hired to work with Jimmy and George. This group of five is joined by three others, Marc Robichaux, a naturalist and artist; D.W. Yarbrough a former marine and Texan Jesuit, and Father Alan Pace. These eight, some unwittingly, become the crew of the Stella Maris whose mission is to visit the distant planet, to learn their language, understand their way of life, and to convert their inhabitants.
In 2059, Emilio has returned to Earth, alone. The Vatican is desperate to understand what happened on Rakhat, but Emilio is a shell of his former self, unable and unwilling to discuss his experience.
Not typically my genre, but this book is inventive, interesting and weird all at the same time. I thoroughly enjoyed the humor Russell inserted into the camaraderie between the companions.
Nice science fiction story with a touch of thriller/mystery that reveals itself to be a theodicy parable in the end
Another reviewer on this site called this book "traumatizing." Amen. It is that, but it is also a beautiful story about redemption and forgiveness. It takes a while to grow on you, but then the mystery of what happened, and the perfect characterizations drawn you in. The ending is not for the faint of heart, and it left me with mixed feelings that I still can't reconcile.
It took me a while to get into the story, but once I was about a hundred pages in, I couldn’t put it down. Some of the most beautiful writing I’ve read. Jimmy coming alongside Emilio and his grief stands out to me as an incredible example of how to walk alongside a grieving person.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Brilliant book. Almost inconceivable the finely interwoven storyline and how much thought and research went into it's construction. Uplifting, devastating and thought provoking.
Deals with some heavy topics; religion, sexual assault, masculinity. It's great sf that uses its peculiar situation to turn the lens inward onto what it means to be human, and what it means to have faith. A very enjoyable read, even as an atheist.
Sci-fi is not my normal type of book to read but I really enjoyed this book. It is about a mission to Rakhat. The satellite station in Puerto Rico is picking up singing over the air waves. The singing is nothing like what is heard on Earth. After much searching they realize it is from another planet. As a result the Jesuit church plans a mission to learn more about Rakhat by sending 8 people none of which are astronauts. The story is being told by Emilio upon his return.
My feelings on this book are milder than I would have expected.
1. Loved the premise. I like to see a sci-fi that doesn't shy away from religious questions. There is a lot of religious discussions that I thought interesting, but at the same time religion didn't really play any part in the "plot" in the end...
2. The dark side of that is that this is framed as another missionary journey (which in the end, it really is not... so... what was the point?) compared to the missions to Mohawks, which honestly... I thought these were the faults we don't want to repeat?
3. The beginning is extremely slow and at first it was difficult for me to orient myself in the characters (I was listening to audio though). On one side, it felt really sophisticated when all of the people came together, on the other it was just too long. I quite enjoyed the slow pace, but I feel like some good editing might do this book good.
4. The other side of that was the ending that felt quite abrupt, spiting me out without a chance to process what have been said. The whole book felt very unproportionate which was only made worse by the narrative framing.
5. The characters were very enjoyable and alive. I especially fell for Sophia, but they were all quite lovely. That said, they felt like a bunch of children on an excursion, like... how can anyone be surprised that things went badly?
6. Looking back at some of the quotations, spiritually this book is quite strong. Unnerving, but it gets a bit lost in all of the "redundant" pieces and falls short with the abrupt ending. .... It's actually quite a nice book about theodicy, I wish I knew that sooner - if I wasn't so focused on the plot, I might appreciated this book more (again I think the format didn't served this well...)
Overall, this is quite a good book, but I guess it should be read as entertaining theological/philosophical treatise more than a sci-fi novel... I quite enjoyed it, but it didn't truly connect with me.
Edit: I'm still thinking about it, some pure spoilery wonderings...
1. Loved the premise. I like to see a sci-fi that doesn't shy away from religious questions. There is a lot of religious discussions that I thought interesting, but at the same time religion didn't really play any part in the "plot" in the end...
2. The dark side of that is that this is framed as another missionary journey (which in the end, it really is not... so... what was the point?) compared to the missions to Mohawks, which honestly... I thought these were the faults we don't want to repeat?
3. The beginning is extremely slow and at first it was difficult for me to orient myself in the characters (I was listening to audio though). On one side, it felt really sophisticated when all of the people came together, on the other it was just too long. I quite enjoyed the slow pace, but I feel like some good editing might do this book good.
4. The other side of that was the ending that felt quite abrupt, spiting me out without a chance to process what have been said. The whole book felt very unproportionate which was only made worse by the narrative framing.
5. The characters were very enjoyable and alive. I especially fell for Sophia, but they were all quite lovely. That said, they felt like a bunch of children on an excursion, like... how can anyone be surprised that things went badly?
6. Looking back at some of the quotations, spiritually this book is quite strong. Unnerving, but it gets a bit lost in all of the "redundant" pieces and falls short with the abrupt ending. .... It's actually quite a nice book about theodicy, I wish I knew that sooner - if I wasn't so focused on the plot, I might appreciated this book more (again I think the format didn't served this well...)
Overall, this is quite a good book, but I guess it should be read as entertaining theological/philosophical treatise more than a sci-fi novel... I quite enjoyed it, but it didn't truly connect with me.
Edit: I'm still thinking about it, some pure spoilery wonderings...
Spoiler
I just... I get that the whole image of "I fall in love with God and he raped me" is quite beautiful in its controversy, but... it also feels a bit hypocritical and privileged. Just follow my train of thoughts... It's the rape that Emilio describes as the moment when he lost faith. And I get that, it's one of the worst violations of the body that can happen to you, I absolutely don't want to diminish that. But... Emilio is a "social worker" (for lack of a better term), he works with people that are in terrible economical, social and psychological situations. He knows that people get raped, he surely knows women that were raped, he knows this is the reality. If God is good, why so many women are raped? Why is it that only when it happens to him, he looses his faith? Do you get my point? While I'm not saying that his - repeated - rape is something to take lightly, I feel like the lowest point of the book is when he accidentally kills Azkama that is the true tragedy of the story and I feel like this point could have been stressed a bit more, but... whatever.
This is a good book, but I can't say I liked it. I admire it, and there are some things I like about it. I really wanted to find out what (had) happened, so I never considered not finishing it. But here's the thing: We meet Father Emilio Sandoz when he's already gone on a mission of First Contact (alien species on another planet) and returned. It's all in the past. Father Sandoz is subjected to an inquiry by his Jesuit order, and his interlocutors (all of whom are other priests) know part of what happened but not all. They know more than we, the readers, however. This was part of my problem with the book — it's kind of a long tease, what happened, what really happened? I felt impatient with it.
I admit that the structure worked better than a straight chronological tale. Via the inquiry, we know that Father Sandoz returned in very poor physical condition. We quickly realize his companions on the journey (three other priests and four scientists) have not returned at all. Chapters alternate between "now" with the inquiry, and "then" leading up to the mission, the journey to the planet, the events that occurred there. Two sentient alien species, quite different from humans, with language and culture.
Apart from my growing impatience to find out what really happened, I didn't connect well with any of the characters. They are better than two-dimensional but in an emotional sense they fall short of three-dimensional. Their personalities are well differentiated, and their affections for one another are made very clear. There was something pedantic about it all, though.
The religion aspect is a large part of what drew me to the book — it seemed like it would be really interesting. But it disappointed me. I guess my interest in religion doesn't encompass the love-of-God part, and that's the focus here. Father Sandoz's work as a linguist was interesting to me, but his struggle with faith — not so much.
Oh, well, some books are disappointing even if they are good.
.
I admit that the structure worked better than a straight chronological tale. Via the inquiry, we know that Father Sandoz returned in very poor physical condition. We quickly realize his companions on the journey (three other priests and four scientists) have not returned at all. Chapters alternate between "now" with the inquiry, and "then" leading up to the mission, the journey to the planet, the events that occurred there. Two sentient alien species, quite different from humans, with language and culture.
Apart from my growing impatience to find out what really happened, I didn't connect well with any of the characters. They are better than two-dimensional but in an emotional sense they fall short of three-dimensional. Their personalities are well differentiated, and their affections for one another are made very clear. There was something pedantic about it all, though.
The religion aspect is a large part of what drew me to the book — it seemed like it would be really interesting. But it disappointed me. I guess my interest in religion doesn't encompass the love-of-God part, and that's the focus here. Father Sandoz's work as a linguist was interesting to me, but his struggle with faith — not so much.
Oh, well, some books are disappointing even if they are good.
.