Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
Children of God and over 300,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device. Learn more

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
111 used & new from $2.11

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Children of God (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
 
 
Start reading Children of God on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.
 
  

Children of God (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

by Mary Doria Russell (Author) "CELESTINA GIULIANI LEARNED THE WORD "SLANDER" AT HER COUSIN'S baptism..." (more)
Key Phrases: second sundown, computer tablet, man with the machines, Iron Horse, Mary Doria, Hlavin Kitheri (more...)
3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (99 customer reviews)

List Price: $14.95
Price: $10.17 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $4.78 (32%)
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Tuesday, July 14? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
40 new from $4.19 66 used from $2.11 5 collectible from $14.95
Also Available in: List Price: Our Price: Other Offers:
Kindle Edition (Kindle Book) $9.99
Hardcover (1st) 59 used & new from $1.55
Paperback 12 used & new from $6.12
Audio Download (Audible.com) $55.99 $29.39
Audio Cassette (Abridged) 20 used & new from $0.23

Frequently Bought Together

Children of God (Ballantine Reader's Circle) + The Sparrow + A Thread of Grace
Price For All Three: $30.54

Show availability and shipping details

  • This item: Children of God (Ballantine Reader's Circle) by Mary Doria Russell

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

A Thread of Grace

A Thread of Grace

by Mary Doria Russell
4.3 out of 5 stars (86)  $10.20
Dreamers of the Day: A Novel

Dreamers of the Day: A Novel

by Mary Doria Russell
4.0 out of 5 stars (33)  $10.98
People of the Book: A Novel

People of the Book: A Novel

by Geraldine Brooks
4.0 out of 5 stars (211)  $10.20
The Book Thief

The Book Thief

by Markus Zusak
4.7 out of 5 stars (628)  $7.19
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Random House Reader's Circle)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Random House Reader's Circle)

by Mary Ann Shaffer
4.6 out of 5 stars (712)  $7.70
Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The abridged audio version of Mary Doria Russell's sequel to The Sparrow is read by actor Stephen Lang, of Last Exit to Brooklyn fame, whose deep, dramatic voice perfectly suits this tale full of loss and redemption, despair, and hope. Children of God continues the story of Father Emilio Sandoz, the Jesuit priest whose faith was brutally tested when he was maimed and raped, and witnessed the deaths of his friends on the faraway planet of Rakhat. Sandoz has begun the long, slow work of healing body and soul, finding some measure of happiness in his new life. He finds himself an unwilling member of a second mission to Rakhat, where survivor Sophia Mendez struggles to live in a world torn by genocidal strife between the Runa and Jana'ata. Children of God is a respectable sequel to a brilliant first novel, one that brings back and further develops beloved characters, and adds depth to an already thoroughly realized world. Lang perfectly captures each character, using flawless accents and a broad range of emotion to bring a new immediacy to the story. (Running time: five hours, four cassettes) --Therese Littleton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Russell follows her speculative first novel, The Sparrow, with a sequel that will please even readers new to her interplanetary missionaries. Having returned from a disastrous, 21st-century expedition to the planet Rakhat, Jesuit Father Emilio Sandoz, the sole survivor of the mission, faces public rage over the order's part in the war between the gentle Runa and the predatory Jana'ata?fury more than matched by the priest's own self-hatred and religious disillusionment. In the sequel, he is forced to return to Rakhat with a new expedition more interested in profits than prophets. When they discover the planet in turmoil and the Runa precariously in power, the temptation to interfere is more than they can withstand. As in her first book, Russell uses the entertaining plot to explore sociological, spiritual, religious, scientific and historical questions. Misunderstandings between cultures and people are at the heart of her story. It is, however, the complex figure of Father Sandoz around which a diverse interplanetary cast orbits, and it is the intelligent, emotional and very personal feud between Father Sandoz and his God that provides energy for both books. 50,000 first printing; BOMC selection; audio rights to Random House Audio; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details


Inside This Book (learn more)


What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Children of God (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
75% buy the item featured on this page:
Children of God (Ballantine Reader's Circle) 3.9 out of 5 stars (99)
$10.17
The Sparrow
14% buy
The Sparrow 3.9 out of 5 stars (482)
$10.17
A Thread of Grace
6% buy
A Thread of Grace 4.3 out of 5 stars (86)
$10.20
Dreamers of the Day: A Novel
3% buy
Dreamers of the Day: A Novel 4.0 out of 5 stars (33)
$10.98

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below.
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
Help others find this product — tag it for Amazon search
No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?

 

Customer Reviews

99 Reviews
5 star:
 (44)
4 star:
 (26)
3 star:
 (15)
2 star:
 (8)
1 star:
 (6)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.9 out of 5 stars (99 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Satisfying sequel makes a brilliant pair, October 6, 2004
By C. Gilbert "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
Like many readers, I found The Sparrow to be one of the most moving and exciting Science Fiction books to come out in recent memory. I almost did not want to read the sequel because I was afraid that it was going to be a disappointment.

While perhaps Children of God is not as original as The Sparrow, it is not (I am relieved to say) a disappointment. It picks up the themes that were explored so well in the first book and develops them in a number of new and satisfying ways. Rakhat is considerably more developed, as is the interspecies conflict between the Runa and the Jana'ata. As in the first book, Russell uses a sure and blessedly light hand to link the events on the two planets to the long-standing moral issues that have concerned humanity.

There are weaknesses in the Children of God that are largely tied to the Earth side of the story. A few of the less necessary characters have the unfortunate feel that they exist simply to move the plot along. Since Russell uses so few cliches in her writing, it unfortunately hits a very sour note on the few occasions where her talent for writing character fails. It did not need stock bad guys or good guys to make it a success. The book also did not need the dramatic 'reward' offered at the end by Isaac and his discovery. The hand of God would have been clear enough in the unfolding events on Rakhat, and additional proof felt unnecessary. Not bad, but unnecessary.

Properly speaking, this book would probably be rated four stars rather than five. However, there are so few writers working with this level of inventiveness. For that reason, and for the strength of the two books taken together, I am rating it as five stars.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great way to elaborate and conclude the story!, December 31, 1999
By A Customer
It's almost not fair to think of The Sparrow and Children as two seperate novels, since their plots tie in so closely and could just as easily be combined into one coherent book. That being said, Children is everything The Sparrow(Also a 5 star book in my opinion) was, and a little more in some places!

There is much more background on Rakhati history and culture given here, which certainly helped me make sense of a few lingering questions I had from The Sparrow(which I'll be reading again in a month or two, of course!) Many questions left open about the characters of The Sparrow(particularly Emilio Sandoz) are also answered, which leads to a better understanding of the storyline of both books, although Children won't be nearly as an enjoyable or understandable to someone who hasn't read The Sparrow.

I highly recommend this novel to anyone who read The Sparrow and enjoyed it, and I recommend the Sparrow followed by Children of God to anyone looking for an engrossing novel on spirituality, religion, and what it all means.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
40 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A Fine Sequel to The Sparrow, March 25, 1998
By Jim Mann (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews
Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow was one of the best SF books of 1996 and a remarkable first novel. That novel, which involved first contact with aliens living on the planet Rakhat (orbiting Alpha Cetauri) worked well on a number of levels. It told a good story, had interesting characters, creating a fascinating alien civilization, and explored some interesting philosophical issues. The ending of the book left me stunned and nearly in tears. I was thus rather worried when I heard that Russell was at work on a sequel. I wasn't convinced that the book needed a sequel and wasn't sure that any sequel could live up to The Sparrow.

Children of God isn't quite as good as The Sparrow. However, although it doesn't have quite the impact of the original, it is still a fine novel in its own right. The book interweaves two stories: the story of Emilio Sandoz and his return to Rakhat and the story of what happened on Rakhat after the original Jesuit mission failed and Sandoz was sent back to earth. The two stories together continue and in many ways complete much of the story of The Sparrow, in a way that makes the book feel like a natural, almost essential sequel.

On Rakhat, war has broken out. The Runa, the herbivore species that were both the servants and the food of the planet's other intelligent species, the Jana'ata, have risen up against their former masters. At the same time, Jana'ata society itself is undergoing great changes, in fact is undergoing a mostly progressive social revolution, lead by the same Jana'ata who was the source of Emilio's brutalization in The Sparrow. Russell does a very good job here of not giving us good guys and bad guys in this struggle. In fact, she even sheds some new light on some things that happened in the previous book, making us look again at why characters did some of the things they did. Both alien species have their good and their bad, and both in their way are trapped by their genes. Catalyzing the whole revolution are Sophia (a human left behind for dead from the first mission), her autistic son Isaac, the Jana'ata merchant Supaari (now an outcast) and his daughter. Much of what happens in the book comes from these four characters and the ways they each attempt to come to grips with the Runa/Jana'ata problem.

At the same time, on earth, Emilio continues to recover from the devastating events of The Sparrow, while the Church tries to convince him to go back to Rakhat, both to help the Church and for the sake of his own soul. Emilio, they feel, can only come to understand what happened to him -- events that have shaken his beliefs -- if he goes back to discover the results of these events. Of course, he does wind up going back, and the new party becomes a crucial part of the resolution on Rakhat.

As a side note, on thing I particularly liked is that, early in Children of God, Russell had the General of the Jesuits essentially produce a short summary of what happened to the first expedition. It was a very nice way of summing up the first novel in a page and a half. Too many writers assume that everyone remembers all the details of a book they read two years earlier. I often don't remember some details, and thus I liked having the short reminder.

If the book isn't quite as good as The Sparrow, this stems in large part from the fact that the story of Rakhat, while well done and rather interesting, is not as interesting as the story of Emilio and his companions. I would at times, while reading about the Jana'ata, really want to get back to Emilio and his companions. They're well drawn and interesting characters and was anxious to find out what would happen to them.

In the end, the book remained satisfying. The ending was strong, and the characters remained interesting to the end. The book will certainly be on my Hugo nominations list next year. (Russell was also on my Campbell nominating ballot this year. I hope she makes it.)

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Not a bad book, but not a worthy sequel: it's well intended, but both writing and themes are a pale comparison to The Sparrow
This sequel continues where The Sparrow left off. Sandoz is finally beginning to heal after the traumatizing events on Rakhat, the first known alien planet. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Juushika

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this book!
I didn't want to put this book down. Very wonderful, thought provoking, and intense. I highly recommend it.
Published 5 months ago by amydidit

3.0 out of 5 stars Poorly Written Characters Drag it Down
Children of God's theology is a bit better than The Sparrow, but the writing has also declined somewhat. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Jedidiah Palosaari

5.0 out of 5 stars A HIGHLY INTELLIGENT TREATISE ON PERSONAL THEOLOGY - A TRUE CLASSIC
Theology can become a distant logical exercise of dry doctrine and easy theoretical conclusions. When it comes down to the wet choices of real life most such theoretical Theology... Read more
Published 14 months ago by NeuroSplicer

3.0 out of 5 stars Children of God - Kindle Edition
Overall I found the book to be interesting, though not nearly as much as the first book. Several plot points felt unnecessary, but overall the exploration of Rakhat, and what... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Jack Phillips

5.0 out of 5 stars got under my skin
Yes, this book has gotten under my skin and into my consciousness, but in a good way. I strongly recommend reading The Sparrow first because this is a true sequel. Read more
Published 20 months ago by zsuzsanna22

4.0 out of 5 stars children of god
This book, the second in a series, is a compelling and fierce read. I can't wait for my father in law to finish it so that I can talk about it with someone.
Published 20 months ago by S. Richardson

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and Original
This is an amazing story, and so unique. The language the author uses is surprising and somehow perfect. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Mike

1.0 out of 5 stars Not Free SF Reader
Unfortunately, this is even worse than the first book, The Sparrow. To be avoided. Insert review of The Sparrow here, as exactly the same applies :-

A bad book by a... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Blue Tyson

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book Will Blow You Away
Two sentient races, one of predators, the other of highly developed herbivores, have lived together for centuries in an uneasy symbiosis until the "foreigners" arrive from Earth... Read more
Published on June 14, 2007 by Louis N. Gruber

Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
New! See all customer communities, and bookmark your communities to keep track of them.
This product's forum (2 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
What is the word no one wants to say? 3 March 2009
what happened to the second earth party??? 2 August 2008
See all 2 discussions...  
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


   


Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)



Look for Similar Items by Category


Cut Wood Down to Size

Cut Wood Down to Size

Split wood with ease using a log splitter from the Outdoor Power & Lawn Equipment Store.

Shop all log splitters

 

Best Books of 2008

Best of 2008
Find our top 100 editors' picks as well as customers' favorites in dozens of categories in our Best Books of 2008 Store.
 

Take the Rough with the Smooth

Shop for abrasives
Use the right abrasive to touch up a small area or to strip an entire surface clean.

Shop for abrasives now

 

A Level Grip

Shop for Black & Decker's Gecko Grip Levels
Easily perform any basic leveling job with a Black & Decker Gecko Grip level, which comes complete with friction pads to help keep it steady under pressure.

Shop the Black & Decker Store

 

 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Where's My Stuff?

Shipping & Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.

Continue shopping: Top Sellers
Paranoia
Paranoia by Joseph Finder
Glenn Beck's Common Sense
Finger Lickin' Fifteen
Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich
My Soul to Lose
My Soul to Lose by Rachel Vincent

Conditions of Use | Privacy Notice © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates