Earthborn: Vol 5 (Homecoming) - Softcover

Card, Orson Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812532988 ISBN 13: 9780812532982

Publisher: Tor Books, 1996

Synopsis

When the children of Harmony return to Earth, they find a much-altered world in which two intelligent races challenge the humans, while Shedemei and the Oversoul set out to find the Keeper of Earth.

About this title

Review:

SF takes old myths and genetically modified them for today's world, from George Lucas doing knight-saves-fair-lady in space to Star Trek's Wagon Train to the Stars. Orson Scott Card's five-volume Homecoming series goes one step further, reshaping some of the most potent myths of all. In effect, he rewrites the Bible as SF, telling an Old Testament story of interstellar Exodus. The planet Harmony was colonised by humans 40 million years ago. Now the orbiting computer, Oversoul, that has governed the planet for all that time, is starting to fail. It selects some humans to make the long trip back to Earth, to contact the even more powerful Keeper and find out how to proceed. By the time humans return to the world, they find that two indigenous races that evolved to intelligence over the 40 million years they were away, the mole-like Earth People, or diggers, and the airborn Sky People, or angels. Earthborn does work, just about, as a standalone story; but it works best as the conclusion to Card's five-book epic of a people freed from bondage like the Israelites from Egypt and the vicissitudes they suffer.

Card's Mormon beliefs are more strongly represented in this book than in some of his others. Earthborn is essentially a story about Free Will, the reasons why God (Card's "Keeper") grants it and the fact that some people will use it to do evil things. This sounds dry, and Card's pious conclusion is a little overplayed, but Card has a reputation in SF for a good reason. He builds all his novels around directly engaging characters and clear-cut moral dilemmas. In this novel it is the most basic dilemma of all: will the attractive but flawed central character Akma choose truth or falsehood, good or evil? If you've read the preceding four Homecoming books then this one is must-buy; and even if this is your first Card novel you'll see why he is one of the world's most highly regarded SF authors. This book may not be at the level of Ender's Game or Xenocide--Card's masterpieces--but it does build a powerful and very human momentum. --Adam Roberts, author of Salt

Review:

"The fifth and last volume in Card's sprawling Homecoming saga. More than parable, not quite allegory, Card's far-future religious saga manages, brilliantly, to be at once entertaining, unobjectionable, and edifying."--"Kirkus Reviews" "The conclusion of the story, in which the first born son of a former priest and leader sees the evil he has caused and selects his future, is vintage Card and a joy to read."--"Publishers Weekly"

About this edition

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0812532988
• ISBN 13: 9780812532982
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448