Jesuits in space

Maria Doria Russell is interviewed on Bookslut. Her first two books concern the first contact with an alien species, and said contact is lead by a Jesuit. Things go badly of course. I'm not gonna lie, I haven't read these for awhile so I can't say much else. Her new book, looks good if possibly immensely sad. It concerns a group of Jewish refugees finding help from Italian soliders and villagers in 1943 Italy.

Her current project looks interesting as well, in the interview, she describes it thusly:

Sure. It's about the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference, during which a handful of European dreamers and politicians and pencil pushers got together to flirt and eat and go out to the pyramids to get their picture taken on camelback, and oh, yeah -- create the modern Middle East. The characters include T.E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, and Lady Gertrude Bell.

If you've not had the opportunity to read about Gertrude Bell or Freya Stark, then by all means do so. They both explored the Middle East (often alone), wrote books about it, and influenced British policy in the area.