Tremendously ambitious, The Sparrow tackles a huge range of challenging ideas: the possibility of alternate forms of intelligent life; the impulses behind religious belief and the tenacity of faith in the face of human tragedy; the limitations of scientific understanding, particularly in the area of comparative anthropology; ethical and cultural relativism; and notions of sexual repression and transgression.

Engaging and neatly structured, the story begins in 2019 with the interception of song signals from Rakhat, a planet in Alpha Centauri; the second in 2059, in the aftermath of the disastrous first voyage to Rakhat, undertaken by a group of Jesuit missionaries. Russell’s detailed exposition of the modes of communication, morality, belief systems and social organisation of the two cultures is clearly grounded in her background in academic paleoanthropology and linguistics.

So far so good. But there are some lamentable distractions: Emilio Sandoz, the Jesuit, is fascinating and subtly developed, but most of his companions are ciphers with curiously adolescent sexual hang-ups. And the central enigma is how a group of people whose most memorable characteristics are their constant cheeriness, permanent smiles and incessant laughter manage not to murder each other early in the mission. The biggest problem is the language - it fails to carry the weight of the themes and the complexity of the plot. Russell’s entertaining and challenging ideas are buried in 500 pages of turgid prose, and the dialogue is so lifeless it wouldn’t have got past the script editor of Home and Away. Let’s hope that, in the event of a sequel, Russell acquires a more ruthless editor.