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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The beginning of an exciting science fiction ride, December 5, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The Memory of Earth (Mass Market Paperback)
Card gives us the first of four very good volumes in a five book science fiction series. Basilica is a wonderful world and the characters that we meet will gain depth and develop over the series. Card is sometimes slow and tedious in his plot advancement. I liken his writing to a journey in which each step is mundane, but when taken one after another, cover long distances and present vista after vista. Buy it, read it, and then get the next three volumes. Then read the reviews before purchasing volume five.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Oversoul begins the question to bring humanity home, April 19, 2003
This review is from: The Memory of Earth (Mass Market Paperback)
The accusation that the Orson Scott Card "Homecoming: Harmony" series is a thinly disguised retelling of the book of Mormon came as a surprise to me, mainly because I am not that familiar with the book of Mormon. However, "The Memory of Earth," the first in the five volume series, certainly has the tenor of an Old Testament story. The planet Harmony was settled 40 million years after the destruction of Earth, and the mother planet is now more legend than dim memory. The human population is cared for by the Oversoul, a computer able to communicate telepathically with some of the inhabitants. However, now the Oversoul is breaking down and needs to be returned to Earth for repairs. The problem is a combination of believability (no one remembers earth) and technology (this is a planet where caravans coexist with a floating chair for Nafai's crippled brother, Issib). The Oversoul contacts a young student, Nafai, and tells him of the Index: an ancient machine through which the computer can talk directly to everyone. However, Nafai's father and brothers are unwilling to believe the boy has been touched by the Oversoul. A further complication is that as the Oversoul's powers decay so do the mental blocks it has implanted in humans to keep them from killing each other. This is especially problematic for Nafai, since his eldest brother is not particularly accepting of the idea that his rightful place has been usurped in this unbelievable manner.
I have to say that I find it hard to believe a book can be accused of proselytizing when its transforms God into a super computer. Granted, the Oversoul is a more benevolent computer than we usually find in science fiction (cf. AM in Harlan Ellison's classic short story "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream"), but that does not automatically make it deserving of deification or worship. Nor do I have reason to believe Mormon society could ever be considered matriarchal. Luet, the girl next door and object of Nafai's affection, considers the Oversoul a god to be worshipped, but she eventually sees the error of her ways. Science fiction novels have dealt with religion more explicitly and more successfully (e.g., "Stranger in a Strange Land," "Dune") than "The Memory of Earth." But here it is not that this book is about religion but rather than it resonates with echoes of many Old Testament tales (think of it as "Nafai and the Amazing Telepathic Computer"). This is hardly surprising given Card's body of work; Uncle Orson has never hidden his faith nor failed to incorporate it on some level. Moreover, Nafai is a rather standard character in Card's writing, that of the young boy trying to find his way in an adult world that is beyond our own experience. The sin here, such as it is, would be that this series is a lesser effort from Card. Nafai is aided in his growing maturity by the help of the Oversoul, which picked him because of his intellect and his ability to "hear" the computer. We want to idealize him as the perfect choice for this mission, but that may be overstating the case. The final volume does take an interesting and rather unexpected turn, but overall I think we would be more impressed with the story if it was not part of a multi-volume exercise.
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50 of 69 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
YIKES!!! It's 1st Nephi from the Book of Mormon in Sci-Fi!, March 14, 2005
This review is from: The Memory of Earth (Mass Market Paperback)
Though I'm not Mormon, I've read the Book of Mormon quite a bit. Reading this book I was startled by parallels to the Book of Mormon narrative in 1st Nephi. By chapter 10 the copying from that 19th century religious work was so overt I couldn't wait to finish it to write this review.
Oh my gosh! IT IS EXACTLY LIKE LEHI and family leaving Jerusalem. They head out to live in tents. The two older brothers are skeptical, critical and antagonistic. The father names a river and a valley after those two, and the son Nafai (looks like "Nephi" to me!) receives a great number of visions from the "Oversoul."
What stopped me cold was when, as I expected, the father sent the sons back to town to get historical documents of the family. This is JUST LIKE the Book of Mormon account.
I'm not sure I can say whether the story itself is good or not, as I find the fundamental plotline being identical to the Book of Mormon to be terribly destracting. Someone who's never read the Book of Mormon and (especially) has no opinion about it would surely write a fairer review.
It is disappointing to see such a lack of originality in an author. Tracy Hickman admits to involving elements of his Mormon faith in the original Dragonance series, but in that context it was minimal, made sense and did not constitute a wholesale copying of another work.
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