Children of God
Children of God by Mary Doria Russell was published in 1998 by Villard Books, two years after the same publisher published The Sparrow. Children of God is a direct sequel to The Sparrow.
Like The Sparrow, Children of God takes place in two parallel tracks. However, in this case, the two are happening more or less simultaneously. One plotline is centered on Earth, where Father Emilio Sandoz, believed to be the sole survivor of the first expedition to Rakhat, leaves the Church, gets married. Sandoz is engaged in doing everything he can to resist the pressures of Church and state to return to the planet where he lost his friends, his love, the use of his hands, and virtually all of his psychological health, if not his sanity.
The other plotline is centered on Rakhat. Russell frequently mentions her auctorial debt to historical fiction and mystery fiction writer Dorothy Dunnett. Dunnett readers will immediately recognize the way in which Russell uses a common Dunnett trope here. At the end of The Sparrow, readers are convinced that all members of the Sandoz expedition have died except Sandoz himself. The opening of Children of God reveals that Russell left herself an out. One additional survivor is alive and at least reasonably well on Rakhat, providing a center around which Russell builds a new set of Rakhat alliances and enmities.
The two plotlines eventually converge, along with material about autism. Readers will learn more about the Jana'ata, the more powerful alien race on Rakhat, and particularly about the Jana'ata women, who live almost entirely in purdah.
The book is far less successful than The Sparrow, and will appeal most to readers who want to know more about the aftermath of the first book.