Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: A very good friend recommended 'Harts Hope' to me years ago. It was my introduction to Orson Scott Card and it shattered my concept of fantasy.I have yet to this day found another novel that has stuck with me so completely. I became engrossed in the story from the first paragraph and enraptured by the end. The words flowed through you like liquid poetry. I found myself stopping many times to re-read paragraphs that stunned me with the beauty of their flow and imagery. I have purchased this book for many friends who have come back to it as many times as I have. I recommend it highly!
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: A very good friend recommended `Harts Hope' to me years ago. It was my introduction to Orson Scott Card and it shattered my concept of fantasy. I have yet to this day found another novel that has stuck with me so completely. I became engrossed in the story from the first paragraph and enraptured by the end. The words flowed through you like liquid poetry. I found myself stopping many times to re-read paragraphs that stunned me with the beauty of their flow and imagery. I have purchased this book for many friends who have come back to it as many times as I have. I recommend it highly!
Rating:
Summary: read it
Review: Full of cruelty, brutality, pain, and anguish. The strange way of telling little stories within the larger one threw me at first. I was expecting this to be a device only in the prologue. After reading for a while, I got into the flow of the story telling. I easily became enraptured of this tale and read it vigorously throughout the day and night. The style of the book seems biblical, with the names and the little titles throughout each chapter remincent of biblical names/titles. His new ideas were sharp and refreshing, in other words not a fantasy novel I had read before. The basic fantasy constructs are there: Nobles, witches, wizards, and magic. The plot has epic proportions, but has Card's brevity and simplicity of description. The worst and best part of the novel is the ending. The reader is left hanging at the end, but if you are able to come to the (almost) inevitable conclusion, then you will be satisfied. (Otherwise it leaves you pulling your hair.) The villianess of the story is evil yet abused in such a way that she should be pitied for her situation, but still justly delt with in the end. Great and powerful, abused and flawed. The debate over her abuse makes this book less black and white, and more shades of gray.
Rating: 
Summary: Decent early Card
Review: Hart's Hope is an enjoyable read and contains themes of Card's later works. Hart's Hope is the story of a young man who comes to a medieval city, full of mostly bad magic, and discovers that he too has a magical talent that he decides to use for good. Overall, the book moves right along and doesn't waste your time. I suppose you could try to extract deep themes out of this book; Lord knows you can from some of Card's other work, such as "Wyrms" or "Xenocide." But this book, although rich in symbolism and even in allegory, is not sufficiently internally consistent or focused to be able to draw out anything other than fairly trite or commonplace insights. Probably the sole important theme that deserves reflection is that conventional morality in extraordinary circumstances may lead to a greater folly (a theme explored obliquely in Card's short story "A Plague of Butterflies").
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth my money
Review: I think this is an incredibly original book. During the last ten years or so, I read lots of fantasies just to pass my time, and forgot most of them (which is what they probably deserved anyway). Not so with this story, which I read again recently. The first thing that captures the reader is the style of the writing: it is a letter written by one of the characters to another; but softly, without the reader noticing how, the perspective switches and all of a sudden we have a story narrated from an outsider's perspective. The ending brings it all back, in a manner that leaves you almost on the verge of frustration: you don't know exactly what will happen, the book doesn't tell you. Yet, you know the choices. In some sense, you can write your own ending. This is one of the beauties of this story: it includes the reader in it. The characters are so interesting because they are, after all, very ambiguous. The character you would think was the hero at the beginning of the book has to commit rape to fulfill his destiny; the true hero is in fact an unwilling victim. The villain commits gruesome acts, but you understand her motives and you cannot help but feel that she, too, is trapped in something bigger than herself. The theme of the story is downright bloody - like a dark secret that you would rather not know, yet it fascinates you. It leaves the reader with a feeling of uneasiness, perhaps because there's a strong taboo that gets violated in the book. The feeling of distress is compounded by the fact that the narrator of the story is supposed to be a character who tells only the truth. A great story.
Rating:
Summary: Card Gets to the Heart of the Matter
Review: No matter whether you read Card's current or old stuff, it's all great! In this moving tale published in 1983, the story reads as a skillful blending of a long parable and historical Bible narrative. Think this might sound boring? Not in the least. Card draws you into the story and provokes you to think. This is one of his many gifts. There is hidden meaning throughout this book. You'll see this in both the obvious and subtle passages of the story. And as you reflect on what he has to say, you'll also find yourself relating to his characters. You'll care for them. And as they experience trials, hardships, pain, sacrifice, and joy, you'll experience it along with them. In Hart's Hope, Card uses one of his typical character techniques: A young child. In this case, two young children. Though their birth's are separated in time by many years, their paths are destined to cross. And though both have been inflicted with childhood scars of unjust pain and suffering, their ultimate divergent responses are as opposite as night and day. Where the one chooses to permanently hate and seek retribution, the other seeks to heal. And in doing so, ascends to those heights attainable only through self-sacrificing love. My only disappointment with this book was that it had to end. Like all of Card's stories, you don't want the story to finish, but to just keep going on.
Rating:
Summary: Greatest Fantasy I've Ever Read
Review: Ok, I first bought this book only because it was written by my favorite author of all time, Orson Scott Card. I picked it up to read it and in the beginning, I admit, it was hard to get into. Names like Enziquel Evelvinsinsee or whatever exactly her name was scared me at first. But as the story progressed, I became more and more attracted to the book. It is comparable to playing a really good videogame. I got to the point where I couldn't put the book down and stayed up really late on school nights to read it. The whole revenge idea in the book is great and, as always, the characters produced by OSC are oustanding and very real. The 3 styles of magic used in the story pull you in even more. This book is highly recommended by me.
Rating:
Summary: Greatest Fantasy I've Ever Read
Review: Ok, I first bought this book only because it was written by my favorite author of all time, Orson Scott Card. I picked it up to read it and in the beginning, I admit, it was hard to get into. Names like Enziquel Evelvinsinsee or whatever exactly her name was scared me at first. But as the story progressed, I became more and more attracted to the book. It is comparable to playing a really good videogame. I got to the point where I couldn't put the book down and stayed up really late on school nights to read it. The whole revenge idea in the book is great and, as always, the characters produced by OSC are oustanding and very real. The 3 styles of magic used in the story pull you in even more. This book is highly recommended by me.
Rating:
Summary: A curious treasure
Review: Orson Scott Card has been acclaimed as one of the most gifted storytellers of our time, and he certainly shows it here. The novel reads not like something thought through and put on paper, but as a story told around a warm fire on a cold night. This is not to say the plot and characters are themselves without merit. To the contrary, Card weaves a fascinating tale of the power (and price) of mercy, both in the past and in the present. I would not recommend the book for the squeamish, however, as (like much of Card's early work) it contains several graphic (in a disturbing sense, not a sexual) scenes.
Rating:
Summary: A curious treasure
Review: Orson Scott Card has been acclaimed as one of the most gifted storytellers of our time, and he certainly shows it here. The novel reads not like something thought through and put on paper, but as a story told around a warm fire on a cold night. This is not to say the plot and characters are themselves without merit. To the contrary, Card weaves a fascinating tale of the power (and price) of mercy, both in the past and in the present. I would not recommend the book for the squeamish, however, as (like much of Card's early work) it contains several graphic (in a disturbing sense, not a sexual) scenes.
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