Father Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit linguist, heads a team of scientists and explorers on an expedition to the planet Rakhat, where contact has been established with two apparently primitive races, the Runa and the Jana’ata. Beyond all expectations one of these peoples have started transmitting by radio but while the UN debates the moral issues of cultural contamination that any investigation would bring, the Vatican equips a ship and sets off.
They meant no harm.
The narrative shifts back and forth between 2016, when contact is first made, and 2060, to a Vatican inquest interrogating the maimed and broken Sandoz. A palaeoanthropologist, Russell makes the descriptions of the inhabitants of Rakhat both convincing and unsettling.
The Sparrow has received the following awards:
- The 1996 James Tiptree, Jr. Award
- The 2001 Kurd Laßwitz Award 1998
- John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
The Sparrows and it’s sequel, Children of God, together won the 2001 Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame.