"The Sparrow, an astonishing literary debut, takes you on a journey to a distant planet and to the center of the human soul. It is the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio Sandoz, who leads a twenty-first-century scientific mission to a newly discovered extraterrestrial culture. Sandoz and his companions are prepared to endure isolation, hardship and death, but nothing can prepare them for the civilization they encounter, or for the tragic misunderstanding that brings the mission to a catastrophic end. Once considered a living saint, Sandoz returns alone to Earth physically and spiritually maimed, the mission's sole survivor--only to be accused of heinous crimes and blamed for the mission's failure.

In clean, effortless prose and with captivating flashes of wit, Russell creates memorable characters who navigate a world of exciting ideas and disturbing moral issues without ever losing their humanity or humor. Both heartbreaking and triumphant, and rich in literary pleasures great and small, The Sparrow is a powerful and haunting book. It is a magical novel, as literate as The Name of the Rose, as farsighted as The Handmaid's Tale and as readable as The Thorn Birds."

"The Sirens of Titan — a lacerating satire gives humanity the brutal message: You are not in control. The horrible truth is discovered by the astronaut Winston Niles Rumfoord, who, while on a voyage to Mars with his dog, collided with a "chrono-synclastic infundibulum" that turned him into a waveform spanning all of time and space. With his knowledge of the immutable future, Rumfoord amuses himself by playing God. He abducts thousands of disenfranchised people and trains them on Mars for an intentionally futile invasion of the Earth, solely for the purpose of bringing humanity together in collective shame over their slaughter of an invading army whose inadequate numbers include women and children. And he singles out one figure, Malachi Constant, the richest man alive, for particular abuse, sending him throughout the solar system in a series of humiliations so that he will stand as an example to humanity of its own worst, most decadent impulses."

 
 
I have been trying to find anyone I know that has read both of these books. So far I have not. I am dying to talk to someone about the similarities. Beyond the comparable ideas behind both story lines, they are both amazingly good. : )