darling books: God on another planet

"He waited, shaking, daring them to speak. 'No questions? No argument? No comfort for the afflicted?' he asked with acrid gaiety. 'I warned you. I told you that you didn't want to know. Now it's in your minds. Now you have to live with knowing. But it was my body. It was my blood,' he said, choking with fury. 'And it was my love.'"

Mary Doria Russell: The Sparrow (picture by pauabooks.co.nz).

The books I present as my "darling books" are the special few that stand out in a lifetime of reading. But only a few among these I would define as "books that never let go". This one, and its sequel Children of God, belong in that category. I like books who take on original topics. It doesn't get much more original than this. Jesuit priests ( in love with God ) and agnostic scientists go off to search for intelligent life on another planet? And still, it's all very believable. I bond with almost all the characters. Only one of them returns to earth, the most loveable of them - now broken in body and soul, and accused of terrible crimes which are explained piece by agonizing piece. I'm not a fan of either science fiction or religious mysticism. This is both - and yet I was enchanted.

These novels are extremely well-written. I have seldom read scientific details explained so accessibly to a non-scientist or religiously devout persons made so real, human and likeable to us others. There is a lot of absolutely hilarious dialogue. There are heated debates among the characters on philosophy and religion - the kind of debates I never normally would be interested in, but here they manage to be both profound and refreshingly down-to-earth. There are fascinating descriptions. And above all, the plot is intriguing. After a while, you start to understand the mystery of the terrible tragedies that occur, although you have to keep reading ( which I did happily ) to the very end of the sequel to have some of your most troubling questions answered.

And the story is  utterly, utterly heartbreaking.

"I am in God's hands, I thought. I loved God and I trusted in His love. Amusing, isn't it? I laid down all my defenses. I had nothing between me and what happened but the love of God. And I was raped. I was naked before God and I was raped."