The Page Count

Tag: Sci-fi

  • The Sparrow

    Mary Doria Russell, 1996

    Edition read: Black Swan, 503 pages 

    Read: 2019

    Sci-fi/philosophy 

    The Sparrow is ostensibly a sci-fi novel, but really, sci-fi is the point of departure. Outline: the planet of Rakhat makes contact with Earth in 2019. The Jesuit Order decide that they’ve got this one, so off they go into space. We follow the crew along on their adventure, but we have already been told that only one member of the crew returns in 2059. Despite the premise of going to and living on another planet, technicality is eschewed in favour of ‘why’? As such, it is more about religion and faith. Nor is it about some outlandish alien religion or faith – it’s mostly the Jesuit Order. 

    This sounds like an incongruous pairing (‘priests in space’ sounds only one step away from a stoner song) but a central theme is how God chooses to show himself.* The characters ponder over this a great deal; when we push the boundaries of existence, how do we maintain belief in old systems? (especially when God taketh away, which he does deign to do here). In this sense, the genre – or maybe the context – of sci-fi is fitting.  

    The chronology jumps around, with the interplay between the two periods cranking up the suspense – we know that something went wrong on the venture, but the details are trickled out. The characters are sometimes cheerful to the point of incredulity, but this is a minor criticism of characterisation in a genre which carries a reputation for sacrificing well-rounded characters in all of the excitement of world-building. 

    Worth reading? Yes 

    Worth re-reading? Yes – a re-read is due on my part. 

    *The books sticks to ‘him’ for God, so we’ll leave it at that here too.  

  • Sea of Tranquility

    Emily St. John Mandel, 2022 

    Edition read: Picador, 2022, 255 pages

    Fiction – (lo-fi) sci-fi

    I enjoyed Mandel’s previous titles The Lola Quartet and Station Eleven and their themes of escape, isolation and reinvention, as well as the subtlety of her writing. What at first appears to be a series of vignettes develops into a single story. Initially, it is not apparent how – and why – these stories are connected, but the success of Sea of Tranquility, and what makes it stand out, lies in that it takes an element of sci-fi – a genre new to Mandel’s writing, albeit in lo-fi form here – and uses it to focus on the human desires and failings of her range of characters. Mandel’s characters routinely paint themselves into corners, and in Sea of Tranquility the sci-fi aspect brings a literal element to the past revisiting the present. These characters – who here, can travel through time and change planets – still yearn, are still uneasy, live normal lives, oft to the point of numbness, all stressed by Mandel’s understated writing style. 

    Worth reading? Yes.

    Worth re-reading? Yes.