{"id":8159,"date":"2011-04-26T15:03:17","date_gmt":"2011-04-26T19:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8159"},"modified":"2011-04-26T15:03:17","modified_gmt":"2011-04-26T19:03:17","slug":"book-review-children-of-god-by-mary-doria-russell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/book-review-children-of-god-by-mary-doria-russell\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: <em>Children of God<\/em>, by Mary Doria Russell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Mary Doria Russell\/CHILDREN OF GOD\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/images\/childrenofgod_med.jpg?resize=225%2C346&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"346\" \/>A few weeks ago I reviewed Mary Doria Russell&#8217;s <em>The Sparrow<\/em> at the <em>Book Book<\/em> review blog. I just posted <a title=\"The Book Book: 'Children of God,' by Mary Doria Russell\" href=\"http:\/\/thebookbook.blogspot.com\/2011\/04\/mary-doria-russellchildren-of-god.html\" target=\"_blank\">a follow-up there<\/a>, a review of <em>The Sparrow<\/em>&#8216;s sequel, called <em>Children of God<\/em>. However, <strong>if you have not read <em>The Sparrow<\/em>, please don&#8217;t read my <em>Children of God<\/em> review<\/strong>: it assumes that you know what happened on the planet Rakhat.<\/p>\n<p>Briefly, I found the later book much harder to like than the earlier (although I continued to appreciate Russell&#8217;s skill):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We&#8217;re forced to spend much time in the company (and minds) of <em>The Sparrow<\/em>&#8216;s less pleasant characters.<\/li>\n<li>Much of the fun of <em>The Sparrow<\/em> came from the kidding, affectionate, and sometimes flirtatious interaction among the humans who made the trip to Rakhat. That original cast of characters is almost completely absent from this book; in their place we have a much more serious bunch. (There are reasons <em>why<\/em> they&#8217;re so serious. That doesn&#8217;t magically transform them into a larky gang of back-slappers, however.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As I mention at the end of the <em>Book Book<\/em> review, I&#8217;d probably rate <em>Children of God<\/em> something like 85 out of 100, vs. <em>The Sparrow<\/em>&#8216;s 95. Still worth a read, though &#8212; if for no other reason, than that it completes the circle of Emilio Sandoz&#8217;s story, while redeeming some of its predecessor&#8217;s horror.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago I reviewed Mary Doria Russell&#8217;s The Sparrow at the Book Book review blog. I just posted a follow-up there, a review of The Sparrow&#8216;s sequel, called Children of God. However, if you have not read The Sparrow, please don&#8217;t read my Children of God review: it assumes that you know what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[37,5,36,266,1905],"tags":[265,2282,2345],"class_list":{"0":"post-8159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-onlineworld","7":"category-06_writing","8":"category-reading","9":"category-book-reviews-writing_cat","10":"category-my-kindle","11":"tag-the-book-book","12":"tag-mary-doria-russell","13":"tag-children-of-god","14":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-27B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8160,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8159\/revisions\/8160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}