Emilio Sandoz was a rough kid from Puerto Rico until the Jesuits took him in. Dedicating himself to the service of humanity in the name of God, Sandoz adapts to the hardships of his calling with a wry sense of humour and rare patience. Over time he makes friends, including cheerful aging boomers George and Anne, indentured intellectual Sofia and young astronomist Jimmy. Things seem swell.
And then Jimmy goes and intercepts a signal from the alien planet Rakhat, proving the presence of intelligent life. Before anyone can even come to grips with the implications of the news, the Roman Catholic Church has already decided to do what it always does when confronted by the unknown: send a bunch of missionaries in and see what happens. After some deliberations, Sandoz and his friends are chosen to form the core team.
Which is insane.
I’m sorry, but that’s INSANE. Sandoz and his bunch of lazy-summer drinking buddies seem like nice folks, and the book keeps on telling us how GOOD and SMART they are but a) NONE OF THEM ARE ASTRONAUTS and b) HOW THE HELL DID SENDING MISSIONARIES TO A NEW WORLD GO THE LAST TIME THEY TRIED? What’s that? Cultural genocide? Oh, right.
Setting aside the inanities of the whole foundation this book is based on, the tale is not particularly well written. The characters seem pleasant and smart, but remarkably unaffected by the discovery of alien life. I mean…sure, they’re SUPRISED. Maybe even a little curious. But their emotional reactions are on par with finding out that the wine they really liked is from Portugal, not, as they’d assumed, Spain. Oh! And the book insists these people are funny AND THEY ARE NOT FUNNY. Imagine reading, time after time, a character tell a joke and then ALL the other characters just think the joke is HILARIOUS and they’re crying and pissing themselves they’re laughing so hard and the whole damn time you’re staring straight lipped at these cold pages just thinking “No…no.”
I’m sure you’ve been to parties where that’s happened. If not, I’m sure you can imagine how tiring the experience can be.
The plucky humans don’t encounter the aliens until halfway into the book, and don’t really start conversing with them in any meaningful fashion until the story’s last quarter. This means revelations/explanations about the aliens are rushed, and are often delivered in tight summations, not unlike you might find in wikipedia. Maybe you should just read the wikipedia article? It’s shorter.
Oh, hell, I’ll even save you that much time. Spoiler: the aliens end up being horrible, horrible things happen, but it helps Sandoz learn more about himself and the universe and maybe even God. So, that’s allright then.
And, hey! The Vatican is sending another mission. Maybe this time they’ll succeed in wiping out about 90% of the indigineous population with diseases, like they did the last time? Which is not mentioned in the novel. At all. No precautions taken by any of the characters. INSANE.
“They meant no harm” the book tells us. Who cares?
So, yes, this doesn’t really work terribly well as Science Fiction, and is only about passable as a novel. I have a suspicion the author wanted to write a historical novel about the Jesuits but couldn’t be bothered to research the details, so made it all up. I’d recommend checking out A CASE OF CONSCIENCE by James Blish, which is an older SF book with a similar central conceit, sympathetic characters, and a moment of reflection on what horrors good intentions can lead to. Also: it’s way shorter than this book. Me like books, usually.
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