If you don’t like any of those things, you should still click and give the eBook five stars. Come on. We all need stars. Really. Even me.

Here is it is!

Available from Amazon.com for Kindle, iPad, iPod and iPhone!

The story is that of a Jesuit party assigned to a first contact mission. The privatization of space exploration allows the Jesuits to quickly and reasonably send a team out to meet the aliens known as Singers. The characters meet in what seem rather unlikely circumstances, adding to their common belief that their whole mission was ordained by God. The author teases so deliberately, so perfectly, page after page. We are invited into the world of a group of professionals from different backgrounds, with different philosophical and ideological worldviews, who find common ground in basic altruism. The mission ends disastrously; and as readers we re-live each triumph and failure of the expedition, while the characters come to grips with their own issues.

For any writer, this book is a must read. It’s obvious that the Mary Doria Russel is a highly intelligent and highly educated writer. Her knowledge of linguistics, anthropology and religion adds a very real dimension to all the characters. Her ability to draw upon the basic human experience and encapsulate it into movements, gestures or moments between characters is startling, in many cases profound and disturbing.

A science-fiction tale, The Sparrow leans heavily on the characters, as all good stories should. The technology, though of great import to the setting and plausibility of the whole, is mostly just a back-drop from the events taking place. This is an absolute must read; a near perfect character study.

The last time I was urged to read the book, I was given a little biography of Orson Scott Card. Having, as most artists, writers and creative-types do, mostly liberal friends, Card’s political and social views were brought up immediately.

“Great book,” they all said “but he hates homosexuals.”

Intrigued, I went right to the bookstore and picked up a copy of Ender’s Game. It was good. I took issue with some of the pacing, but just when I was frustrated enough, the scene shifted and we the readers were propelled forward in time to a more interesting and active moment in the hero’s tale.

As I read, however, I noticed distinct moment of strangely potent homo-eroticism. The hero, a boy named Ender, is sent to live in a co-ed battle school, where he will be transformed into the ultimate soldier. He is barely eight, but has an intellect and maturity level rivaling most adults. By the time he is twelve, he has killed two other boys (though he doesn’t know it) and defeated every enemy he’s ever encountered.  While at the Battle School, Ender is constantly removing his clothes, wrestling and fighting in the nude and ignoring the nudity of any present (of which there was only one) females.

The Author goes so far as to make sure we all know that some of the other students (boys) are sleeping in the nude. In one touching and strangely disturbing scene, Ender offers to share his bed with a young student who is too young to find his way “back to the barracks.”

Orson Scott Card is perhaps one of the armchair military philosophers who believe in the Ancient Greek Military Discipline, where young boys were “tutored” by older soldiers. This was not, of course homosexuality. It was in fact, the most masculine way to be a pederast.

After discussing the book and this bevy of very Ancient Greek fraternity described in it, one of my compatriots suggested of Card, “Perhaps he doth protest too much?”

Regardless the book was a good story. It was well written by an author with a good understanding of developmental psychology and… fear. All that said, I feel guilty for purchasing the book and however indirectly, giving financial support to such a radical and fundamentalist worldview. Looking at Orson Scott Card’s bibliography, it seems there is a bevy of great stories that I’ll never read.

This story picks up with a Commissar-Colonel Gaunt wondering just how soft he’s gotten. One is reminded of the opening scenes of Apocalypse Now, where Martin Sheen stares out of his window wondering he’ll get orders to leave Saigon.

Gaunt’s Ghosts are no different than any other combat veteran, an entire regiment of soldiery so tuned up and keyed to self=preservation through violence, it’s no wonder that the Ghost’s run astray.

The novel opens with a gruesome scene wherein the infiltration of the Sabbat Crusade’s HQ world is cleverly explained. I won’t give too much more detail for fear of spoiling a fun read.

I did note, however, that it was page 67 before I felt the old interest, that Abnett page-turning, pulse-pounding sci-fi pulp action returning. Aside from the Blood Pact infiltration, I honestly can’t remember what happened in those first 67 pages.

As a long time Gaunt’s Ghosts fan, I think my patience for their antics is higher than would be for a new reader. I also found myself reflecting on the characters, it feels as if most of the original Ghosts are gone now. The replacement characters have yet to become fully endeared to me and I wonder, how will this regiment end up?

Gaunt’s capture and torture in the last book were cleanly glossed over, and any residual trauma he may have had has yet to make itself known…