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Earthborn

Earthborn

List Price: $6.99
Your Price: $6.29
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Disappointment
Review: I'd gotten interested in this series with "The Memory of Earth" and gotten interested in the saga of Wetchik and his family,and trudged through the quasi-religious drudgery of the chapters because I enjoyed the characters otherwise. This book brings the saga to a unsatisfactory ending. The Oversoul does not get the help it needs to repair its otherself on Harmony,only that the still unknowable Keeper of the Earth simply told it to let it fail in its mission,to die and let the humans of Harmony reclaim lost technology. Therefore the entire series was unnecessary. The Oversoul could've simply given up and let Wetchik and his sons live out their normal lives on Harmony good or bad,instead of running around with Rat(diggers) and Bat(angels) people on Earth. Most of the series problems could've been solved if that silly boy Nafai simply killed his a-hole brother Elemak. I'm disappointed and can't stand any of Card's other books. I really want the two weeks of my life back that I spent reading these books.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: You don't have to be a Mormom to like this book/series
Review: I've read all five books in a row, all other books, some even half-read, had to wait, because I wanted to know what happened to Nafai and his crew. I am not a Mormon, nor do I belong to any church or religion, still I was touched by the morals of the story told in the series. Apart from being a great SF/Fantasy story, the Homecoming books are all about choice and morals. Knowing what is right or wrong, you still have a choice to do the right thing or not. I don't know much about the book of Mormom, but for me it was both a insight to the religion of OSC and his peers, as an insight into my own morals and choices in life. A most read for thinkers and philosofers.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Goodbye 1st Nephi, hello Alma
Review: If you are going to read this because you read the first 4 books and want to find out what happened, don't read this one. The characters Card built in the first 4 are not in this book, and are basically never mentioned. Few unanswered questions are answered. This book takes place hundreds of years later. (For those of you following the Book of Mormon paralels, this book takes place during the lifetime of Alma the Younger.) Regardless of dropping the previous characters, this book was a good read in and of itself. You got this far, go ahead and finish the series.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: More Polemic than Sci-Fi
Review: Instead of resolving the mildly interesting relationships and questions addressed in the first four books of the Homecoming Saga, Card discards all but one of the original characters and mounts a soapbox in "Earthborn" to preach against atheism, freedom of religion, and the separation of church and state.

Though (as always) Card's writing is adept enough to keep you reading, he makes his points without art or subtlety, driving them home with a hammer the size of Salt Lake City. Only the "evil" characters preach against the state religion; they become "good" when they discover "the Keeper." All moral conflicts in the book (and, in retrospect, in the series) boil down to one point: follow god or you're evil. Card, apparently, sees no middleground, and without that, the book lacks the texture and depth that might make it interesting to those who do not share his views.

Indeed, the resolution of the overarching mystery of the series - "Who is the Keeper of Earth?" - is completely unsatisfying. The answer - "god" - is far too easy, and would have been predictable had I not assumed (based on Ender's Game) that Card was a writer of more depth.

If Card wishes to so flatly express his Mormon beliefs in fiction, that is of course his right. But it is inaccurate to file this book under "SciFi," simply because it takes place in the future and uses a different name for god. "Earthborn" is nothing more than a religious treatise, and should be labeled as such.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Orson Scott Card Fails for the first time
Review: Most of Orson Scott Card's books are wonderful and I devour them quickly. However, this book introduces completely new characters with odd names that are conjecated in different ways every time they are used. It quickly gets boring. Most books take about a quarter of the book to introduce the characters. The first chapter in this book starts as if you already know about all of them and dives into what would have been suspenseful action. However, since we don't know or care about the characters yet, well, we don't care. This book was such a bore it took me 3 months to finish it. This was the FIRST orson scott card book I have ever disliked. Read it for yourself, you might like it.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Card seemed to have written himself into a corner
Review: My only issue with this book is that Shedemai (and the Oversoul) are the only charachters still around from the first book. It also get's into some deep religious overtones. In the end it's a good story though and well worth the read.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good
Review: My only issue with this book is that Shedemai (and the Oversoul) are the only charachters still around from the first book. It also get's into some deep religious overtones. In the end it's a good story though and well worth the read.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Shedemei's Story
Review: 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

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The excellent conclusion to the Homecoming Saga
Review: Orson Scott Card completes his epic story of the return to and repopulation of Earth magestically in this fifth book of the Homecoming Saga. Long after the end of the previous book, Earthfall, the reader gets to know a whole new set of unique and entertaining charecters while learning of the legacy of the previous charecters. Don't despair, though; there are still two of the old charecters, the Oversoul and Shedemei, who have a large part in the story as well. If you've been wondering about the Keeper of Earth or aching for more of the Angels and Diggers, this book is a must read!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Ripoff of the Book of Mormon
Review: Orson Scott Card is Mormon, and if we didn't know it before, now we do--he based the entire plot of the Homecoming series on the Book of Mormon. It's so pathetic that I am speechless.


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