Customer Reviews

Earthborn (Homecoming, Volume 5)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I have no idea what Card is about. The first four volumes of the series had high and low points, but did pull you into the plot and the characters. What this volume is about is a puzzle to me. An almost entirely new set of characters is introduced, the societies presented are not related to the societies in the previous volumes, the motivations of the actors and actions seem like a sociological treatise, and, frankly, I was unable to stir up interest in either chaacters or plot. I am lost to understand what Card is trying to do, except to throw in an unrelated volume to stretch what is an otherwise decent series. Other reviewers have argued that Card's plot and focus is consistent in a broad sense. I understand that arguement, though I do not agree with it. But, even if there is a broader plot, Card simply doesn't deliver it in this volume. This last volume strikes me much like the Riverworld series ... it continues in terms of turning out pages and rolling down the river, but the pages don't lead to anywhere. This book, in my mind, is the epitome of the typical Card seies ... a slow paced, but engaging start. A well wrought world and society. Careful and lengthy character development. Threads that are well woven and all accounted for. Then, a seeming loss of steam or interest or skill with an anti-climatic resolution. This volume exceeds even the typical Card resolution. It would have been better for both audience and author if Card had stopped before writing this volume. It is, perhaps, the worst science fiction I have read by a major author.

"Earthborn" is the fifth and final volume in Orson Scott Card's Homecoming Saga, and readers who have followed the conflict between Nafai and Elemak to this point will be surprised to find that the story now jumps ahead hundreds of years to their descendants. As such the volume strikes most readers as more of an epilogue or postscript rather than as a conclusion to the tale. Then again, knowing Uncle Orson, there is always reason to believe that what we are reading is some sort of a morality play for our edification. I do not read too many authors who write allegories as often as Card, at least not without going back several centuries (and back across the Atlantic Ocean).

In "Earthborn" there is one member of the Children of Wetchik from the earlier novels who made it from Harmony to Earth and is still around, namely Shedemi, who now wears the cloak of the Starmaster. The descendants of Nafai and Elemak have built their own cities and towns, but the animosity between the brothers remains potent between the two peoples. The quest to find the Keeper of the Earth, the computer-like intelligence that can repair the Oversoul back on Harmony, still continues. Now there is evidence that the people on Earth have been influenced by the Keeper and Shedemei has decided to leave the starship Basilica and feel the earth under her feet once again.

In the other books there were more immediate and practical concerns, plus the Oversoul was helping move things along. But with the Starmaster and the Oversoul in the background, more philosophical (read religious) issues have come into play. With humans as the Middle People between the Angels (Sky People) and Diggers (Earth People), many of Card's fans will be reminded of the later volumes in the Ender series. Obviously others will see strong parallels between the story and parts of the Book of Mormon, but I cannot speak to that and am content with the ample evidence that "Earthborn" can be read either way.

Ultimately it is the great leap forward in the narrative that becomes more of a concern and while reading the first four books consecutively makes perfect sense, with each picking up where the previous one left off, I really think you want to go off and read another book or two (or more) before you proceed to this one. That is because if you are not open to the shift from Nafai and Elemak to the Angels and Diggers you are not going to either enjoy or understand the novel, and you may well be better off just ending with "Earthborn." However, I find it hard to believe that those who like the writing of Orson Scott Card would just ignore one of his books, even if they did have to work to figure out what it really meant.

What happened? I was anjoying this series and Card in general and then he drops this bomb. The whole book was something that could just be summed up in an epilogue in Earthfall. First of all, let me say that all the most interesting characters are gone. Shedemei is the only survingin one and she was the least interesting of all. This book seemed to drag along and we're left in the dark as to the nature of the keeper. The Keeper is almost desribed as magma flows that somehow create an intellegence. It's almost as if Card couldn't think of anything and just wrote that. Then there is the issue of one of the characters, Akma. Akma is obviously a metaphor for an Athiest of today. He is a person filled with hate and intolerance and is an insult to all Atheists. So the Keeper sends Shedemei down to strike him down for believing freely as he does. Don't stop reading Card after this one, though. This is far from his best and is still one of the best SF authors around

This is really a great book as far as the storyline goes, but I was hoping to get more of the old characters. While they were talked about as legends and heroes, I really wanted to see what actually happened to them. Specifically, I was expecting to learn about the war between Nafari and the Elemaki.

I can't really complain too much though because I really did enjoy this book, including the new characters.

Throughout this series Card has been playing with Biblical themes and characters on another planet 40 million years in the future, and then on Earth in the same time period. He now follows the Biblical track of jumping from 400 years before Christ to the time of the New Testament. There was the creation of sacred texts by the patriarchs (Nafai) that are now followed, to certain extents by the people of Earth. But just as in 1st century Palestine, many have grown legalistic in their pursuit of their religion, and are in need of revival. On the way he successfully limits the validity of the Mormon Native American myth, by comparing those tribes to an Islamic violent failed evolutionary stream that is only peripherally related to the main storyline.

In the meantime, in the downside of the series, only Shedemai remains from the original cast of the first four books. I miss the characters that Card drew so well, and wanted to know what happened to them- it felt like conflicts were still unresolved. But then, that is the way of the Bible too, where the point isn't the characters, the people, but the shadowy character behind the people, God. Shedemai's presence provides some measure of continuity, and also provides a nice setup for a Christ-figure to show up, as people begin to preach the religion of Love.

So here, we have a man who baptizes, speaking of another coming after him, and of the need for people to renew themselves in love, and return to the true religion of the Keeper, ala John the Baptist. We have the growth of the movement, and the resulting persecution. And one, close to the religion, breathing murderous threats, and then he is met on the road to Damascus.

None of this of course fits with the stories we find in the Gospels and Acts. Rather, Card seems to be taking the stories and themes of the New Testament and playing freely with them, to create new stories, using the same ideas in new ways. Though at times Shedemai is a Christ figure, with great power, coming from something like God Himself, with a huge ethic of service within love, and love of all peoples and species- she also does not know herself, and does not know the Keeper. But do not look here for anyone truly representing Jesus or God. This is in many ways poorly done allegory, as if Card is trying to represent Biblical themes and characters and yet can never adequately achieve true symbology. This is certainly a work of fiction, and shows how truly fictional similar heretical attempts to recreate the Biblical storyline have been.

Through this Card shows what might have been the psychology of some of the heroes and anti-heroes of the Bible. The Old and New Testament sometimes don't lend themselves to the degree of psychological introspection we desire and have come to expect in modern novels. Here is one possibility for that introspection. And finally, what we have been waiting for for five books, what was hinted at all along, Shedemai gets to see who the Keeper of Earth truly is.

Only really it isn't. I was a bit disconcerted by the end of book 4 where he fast forwarded through human history and the Elenaki / Nafari wars but I figured he'd come back to it after all there's the Oversoul / Keeper plot to resolve.

Okay so Earthborn picks up that plot 500 years on. 500 years in which slavery has grown up in a group of people who's whole point was peaceful co-existance, 500 years in which those seeking the keeper have done absolutely nothing to find him.

The new characters seem laboured I tried to care about them but I failed miserably I had a 1000 pages of history with the other crew now these upstarts are going to provide the solution to Volemaks quest. I feel vaguely cheated.

There's really no need to buy this book as for all real purposes the story finished in the end of Earthfall, that wasn't because the story had been told it was because that's where Card finished it. This is the start of a new series not the conclusion of the old one

I wanted to like this. I really enjoyed the previous 4 books, but this one left me feeling cold. The blatant moralising was a bit too much. Shouldn't the characters be allowed to make up their own minds? A disappointing ending to an otherwise original and entertaining series

Card's Earthborn is a masterpiece that illustrates to every reader the idea that all human are imperfect. The characters are all human and none are completely perfect, or completely evil, allowing the reader to see heros and enemies that more closely reflect the adventures that we face everyday.

I was disappointed by Earthborn. Yes, it has the grand sweep, the fascinating characters, the Search for The Meaning of Life. But as I was reading it I got the sense more and more that I was being preached to, that Card was trying to fashion a sci-fi New Testament. Now, I agree with a lot of his messages: the destructive competitiveness of men, the power of bonds of family and friendship, things that are worth striving for (honor, honesty), etc. But ultimately the story falls flat because of the deus ex machina ending; the principal antagonists (Akma, Mon, Aronha) do not "find the light" in their own world, in their own way. Instead, it is kicked in their teeth by The Keeper that they were wrong. And that flies in the face of what Card is preaching: that we need to achieve goodness through free will.

I read the four books before this waiting for the big payoff, the finale to end it all. What do I get? A moralistic treatise with the o-so-subtle theme of the hatred in the heart of atheists.

This book takes place 500 years after the rest, all the interesting characters are dead. On earth there are two nations. In one an atheist named Akma begins preaching hatred. The keeper's final decision? Kill him. Why, because he's a blasphemer.

And speaking of big payoffs, we never fin out what the keeper is. It has something to do with magma flows and magnetic fields (yes I know it's supposed to be God) that influence people's minds. I think about a paragraph is spent on explaining this.

Believe me, Orson Scott Card has much better books than this.