2025/206: The Children of God — Mary Doria Russell
Saturday, January 3rd, 2026 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranth
What is it in humans that makes us so eager to believe ill of one another? ... What makes us so hungry for it? Failed idealism, he suspected. We disappoint ourselves and then look around for other failures to convince ourselves: it's not just me. [Prologue]
Audiobook reread, after listening to The Sparrow. It's many years since I last reread: here are my brief notes from 2007 reread. I stand by my original opinion, that this is not nearly as good or as well-structured a novel as The Sparrow. There is gorgeous prose, interesting ideas and a crowd of new characters: but there is also uneven pacing, political manoeuvring, and outright war. There are, possibly, too many viewpoint characters, and a lack of the precise focus of the first novel. And there are several developments which felt unnecessarily cruel. ('She died last year.')
Narrated by Anna Fields, who manages the many accents and character voices -- across three species and a dozen nationalities -- admirably, with the sole exception of Northern Irish priest Sean Fein. I was especially impressed by her range of masculine voices.
I still hope for more SF from Mary Doria Russell, and I wish more of her books were available as ebooks in the UK.
