Crossroads discussion

Many of us like Science Fiction and this is the discussion topic to add your suggestions and reviews to.

The Sparrow
by Mary Doria Russell
4 stars
pp. 405

It has been some time since I have felt such dread every time I cracked my current read open as I have with Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow. A spaceship has returned from the planet Rakhat after some forty years with only one member of its flight, Jesuit priest, Emilio Sandoz. His spirit is broken, he is badly injured and in poor health. Because Russell fluctuates from the present to the time when they were preparing for flight, we get to know all the crew members and are aware of their eventual demise. This puts the reader on edge, but keeps them reading as well.

As with her later books, Russell is well able to develop likable character which the reader feels tied to. Some of them, as Anne and George Edwards, the doctor and her scientist husband, one would be glad to come to their house for dinner and drinks and others as Sofia Mendes, the beautiful Vulture, who learns all about a person and uses their knowledge to develop a computer program, but reveals nothing of herself, the reader feels great sympathy for.

Here Russell describes John Cardotti who is chosen to advocate for Emelio Sandoz:

“John Cardotti was born to flat land, straight lines, square city blocks; nothing in Chicago had prepared him for the reality of Rome. The worst was when he could actually see the building he wanted to get to but found the street he was on curving away from it, leading him to yet another lovely piazza with yet another beautiful fountain, dumping him into another alley going nowhere. Another hour trapped and frustrated by the hills, the curves the rat’s nest of streets smelling of cat piss and tomato sauce. He hated being lost, and he was always lost. He hated being late, and he was late all the time. The first five minutes of every conversation was John apologizing for being late and his Roman acquaintances assuring him it was no problem”

This is a beautiful story about pain and loss and redemption. Mary Doria Russell did a superlative job in crafting her characters and her setting. She made the story of Jesuits launching a spacecraft to a distant planet believable and really quite wonderful. I did find some of the plot points weaker that her later works, but I am still planning on reading Children of God.

Booknblues wrote: "The Sparrow
by Mary Doria Russell
4 stars
pp. 405

It has been some time since I have felt such dread every time I cracked my current read open as I have with Mary Doria Russell’s The..."

I recommend reading the sequel. Some like that better, some like this better, but it brings some closure, which for me was important, even though it took me about 10 years to finally read the sequel after reading this one. I wish I'd read the sequel sooner.

Winter by Marissa Meyer
★★★.5

Winter is still slowly going mad from not using her glamour, Scarlet imprisoned as a pet, Cinder, Cress, Kai, Wolf, Thorne and Iko on the ship they escaped in when Winter opens. But Levana is still plotting, and after glimpsing just how loved Winter is, devises a plan to take care of Winter once and for all. As we all know will eventually happen, they all end up on Luna, endeavouring to overthrow Levana and end her nefarious reign to save Lunars and Earthens alike.

This is the longest of the three books, and while the writing level remains consistent, it is not only over twice the length of Cinder, it is more than 260 pages longer in hardback than the next longest book, Cress. I really didn’t think everything in that extra length (in various parts of the book) was necessary for a great end to this tale, and in between times of really enjoying this story again, I got bored or distracted, which is why it’s 3.5 stars, not 4.

Karin wrote: "I recommend reading the sequel."

I am in complete agreement and always recommend reading Children of God
While it gives closure in many ways it is as unsettling as The Sparrow.

I read hardly any science fiction. But I did read The Martian by Andy Weir on my daughter's recommendation. It was very good. It's very technical but very funny.

Blueberry wrote: "I read hardly any science fiction. But I did read The Martian by Andy Weir on my daughter's recommendation. It was very good. It's very technical but very funny."
I read The Martian last year and loved it.

Yes, The Martian is a worthy read.

So enjoyed The Martian.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler ★★★★

No one will be more surprised than I was that I enjoyed this novel at four stars; I read it for a group read, and at the beginning was sure it would rate no more than two stars. For one thing, the premise is not my cup of tea. For another thing, it took me quite some time to root for the protagonist, Lauren, since I didn’t warm up to her immediately. For the final reason, it was written in 1993 and set about ten years from where we are now, so already this won’t happen as written, because things would have to be different even now; it is usually a bit irksome to read novels like that, at least for me, although sometimes it can be rather interesting to think back on why someone would think that and set it now.

The book is set from 2025 to 2027 in California. Society is rapidly turning to anarchy; drought, poverty, a police force that charges fees to do nothing of any value, lack of education, jobs, a drug that turns people into pyromaniacs, murder, rape, starvation; virtually nothing is good. Lauren lives with her father, a Baptist minister, her step-mother and her younger siblings in a community that has been walled off to keep out arsonists, looters, rapists and so on. Her father still has a job as a college professor as well. From the start of the novel, Lauren is developing her own religion (this book goes from shortly before she turns 16 to the age of 18) and plans to help who she can even though she can see things are only going to become worse.

When her community is finally destroyed, she sets out on the road north from her neighbourhood near Los Angelos, with the one other survivor of her neighbourhood she sees. In addition to the struggles all are having, she suffers from hyperempathy, which means she feels both the pain and joy of others around her, making survival much more difficult since she will buckle with the same pain as that of an attacker she is fending off. There wasn’t anything about this book I would actually call science fiction, but it may be that later on in the series that will happen. But then, Octavia Butler didn’t set out calling her fiction scifi, either.

This book failed to get five stars from me due to the reasons I first thought it would get only two. But several things brought it up, not the least of which is that Butler could certainly write well and spin a story that kept me reading longer than I’d planned. The protagonist may be a teen, but this is not a young adult novel. While it is not extremely graphic, it still shows the brutality of many and doesn’t euphemize any of it.

Karin wrote: "Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler ★★★★

No one will be more surprised than I was that I enjoyed this novel at four stars; I read it for a group read, and at the beginning was s..."

Sounds like one I might like!

Omega by Jack McDevitt ★★★

This is my first read of this space opera series, so am coming in rather far along, but that's okay.

The Omega is a destructive, interstellar object that strongly resembles a cloud; but there isn't just one of them, and what they destroy are anything that has right angles and constructions clearly not natural. Generally, this has been a few planets with civilizations long gone, at least in observation so far. Not only is one en route to hit earth in 900 years (so hard to get anyone to take it seriously), but now one has veered off course to a planet hitherto unkown that is one of only three discovered so far with sentient life forms (most others with life haven't passed the single cell stage), it is the only one with a currently advancing civilization, at a stage somewhere around ancient Rome. Not only that, but these being rather resemble those of a popular children's cartoon on earth. Now the race is on to see if that civilization can be saved and ideally without making contact.

While I liked this enough that I plan to read the next one to see what is up with those Omegas and some of the characters that must repeat from book to book, I'd class this, like a fellow reader, in my B list of scifi. Well enough written to like, nothing brilliant or compelling, some things more or less predictable (well, some things are pretty predictable among all scifi I have ever read) it is fun. Some have said it could be 100 pages shorter, but I think not; part of the fun for me was the story of the characters, and it isn't a difficult read. Shorter would have meant a loss of part of what makes this space opera.