Children of God

Children of God is the sequel to Mary Doria Russell's debut novel, The Sparrow.  In The Sparrow mankind discovered intelligent life on Rakhat, a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri, and launched a mission to go and study the life there. Children of God deals with the aftermath of that mission, which sparked a revolution on Rakhat.

There are two sentient species living on Rakhat, one carnivorous (the Jana'ata) and one herbivorous (the Runa). The Jana'ata used the Runa for everything, from labor to food.  They controlled when they could breed and who they could breed with.  They also monitored they're own population quite closely, at roughly 4% of the Runa population.

Of course, when the humans learned about these strict breeding policies, they were appalled.  And they incited the Runa to revolution.

Children of God follows the aftermath of this.  How the revolution plays out and what it's consequences are.

Parallel to this, Emilio Sandoz is returning to Rakhat because in order to seek some balance or explanation for what happened the last time.

I think I liked The Sparrow better, but this was a very good book, too.  It's a great sequel and finishes the story of Emilio Sandoz off nicely.

One of things I like most about this book was that the story telling wasn't quite linear.  Part of this was because the journey to Rakhat takes 17 years relative to Earth, but only six months relative to the people traveling, thanks to near light speed travel.  The narrative switches between Sandoz and the events on Rakhat.  It also jumps occasionally to the future, to show other perspectives on events.  Russell juggles all of this quite well and the book is a bit like a puzzle, with everything coming together to make sense at the end.

If you read The Sparrow, you'll probably want to follow up with this book.  And you should definitely read The Sparrow.


I'm really glad I discovered Mary Doria Russell.  And I'm even more excited that she has three more books that I can read.  These books include:

  • A Thread of Grace - about Jewish refugees in Northern Italy during the Second World War
  • Dreamers of the Day - about the Cairo Peace Conference in 1921
  • Doc - about Doc Holliday
I think I'm most excited about Doc, so that's moving up the list of books to read.  I'm trying not to buy any more books until we move, though.  Every book I buy adds to the weight of what we have to move.  So I'll stick to books I already own and my kindle for the next month and a half.

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