There's something fundamentally unconventional about Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow, the first instalment of what is, as of 2009, a science fiction duology concerning Earth's first encounter with extraterrestrial intelligence. Most fiction of this type follows the fairly predictable pattern of introducing danger, enduring it, and then solving for it in the end. And though Ms. Doria Russell doesn't completely throw off the whole of narrative tradition, the nuanced structure of the Sparrow is enough of a departure from the norm to consider it significant. For one thing, Ms. Doria Russell is short on sci-fi tropes. Instead, she draws upon the history of Christianity to envision a possible first contact scenario with aliens where we discover them and we investigate them by sending missionaries to their world.
One would expect pox-tainted blankets and brutal, righteous massacres to follow, but Ms. Doria Russell chooses a different road, one in which an honest effort on the part of our eccentric, missionary explorers to understand, to communicate, to reach out and bond across the gulf of time and space, brings only amazement, misunderstanding, and horror. No, there is nothing particular about this tale that elevates it to masterwork, but the Sparrow has a cumulative power: great characters, new take on an old story, and even some history to impart to its readers. This is quality work. (4/5 Stars)
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