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Summary: Summary: Excellent. I can't believe I didn't read it sooner.
Review: A 'saga' in every sense of the word! I became a fan of Orson Scott Card after reading Ender's Game (Hugo & Nebula award winner) years ago, and as I've read more of his work, been ever more impressed at his ability to sculpt a story with words as surely as a sculptor uses clay. 'The Worthing Saga' uses many of the same basic plot devices that are found in his other works - particularly 'Ender's Game'. The main character, Jason Worthing is a singularly gifted protagonist: endowed with mental and intellectual gifts, becomes part of a 'master plan' that changes the fate of the human universe, lives to see the full fruit of his labors - with a twist to boot! The story begins near the end, and relies on a series of 'flashback' sequences to build the full framework. Very well done, excellent character development, and a compelling story. I DEFINITELY recommend this book...
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Summary: A story filled with compassion and character!
Review: This book combines "The Worthing Chronicle" with the other stories Card wrote which detail the tales told in the chronicle. Jason Worthing, a poor young man, bears witness to the decline of a human empire based on sleep through time and is sent away with the empire's malcontents to create a new human colony. Why is pain and fear and aging and dying necessary? Jason tells his story to a future colonist and tries to explain what happened and why in a series of tales from his origin and the early colony. What sticks with me about this book though is the compassion and humanity of the characters and how all the wisdom and miraculous power is no substitute for that compassion, character and humanity. This is a great book! Why does God allow pain and suffering? Any book that comes close to explaining why certainly deserves reading. But the humanity of the characters is what will grab you and make you want to read this book again. This book will make you feel,laugh, and cry.
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Summary: A Tale Only Card Could Have Written
Review: I have been a fan of Cards for about 3 years now, and I've read at least three quarters of his amazing collection. I picked up this book between reading Xenocide and Children of the Mind (also AMAZING books) because the bookstore didn't have Children of the Mind at the time. So I figured it was a Card book, thought I'd like it. Turns out I loved it. The Worthing Saga is a tale that only a science-fiction god himself could have pulled off. It was an awe inspiring story, but once that story ended, the book didn't. Card treated you to many side variations of lores that were just as great as the core of the story itself, it made you feel more adequetly aquainted with the race than just the first two characters mentioned. These tales give the reader an indepth look at how a man raised a world on his own.
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Summary: Card examines importance of opposition
Review: In the Worthing Saga, Card uses his gift of story-telling to weave a sort of exteneded fable, with a moral so distinctly and beautifully writ, that the reader cannot help but feel edified by it. In the beginning the character, Lared, and his family suffer what is called the "Day of Pain": on one day three people die and sorrow is felt the planetwide as never before. The next morning, Lared is milking his cows when he spots two people walking across the water to him: Jason and Justice. Thus begins a story that justifies pain in life, justifies suffering.
My favorite part of Worthing Saga is Card's characters. He makes them very real, so that their suffering and their victories are palpable for me. Worthing Saga does not conform to any preplot of commercial fiction. In fact, many of the conflicts in the book that would in most books aspire to centrality instead fade to the side to allow room for the lofty moral, and the reader's own questioning. Like a Herman Hesse book, Card allows the reader to search for answers before they are given. Moral of the story? There must be opposition in all things, and suffering in life to ennoble mankind. Card also illustrates this by his use of short-story. Rather than creating some kind of Odyssean Hero, as most Science Fiction does, he pushes each hero aside one by one, till at the end the reader is left not with a kind of dear alter-ego he wishes he could be, but with a general feeling of affection towards the characters and a clear understanding of Card's message.
Card's greatest gift lends itself to meditative short-stories, and Worting Saga, a cluster of such stories, is one of his greatest works.
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Summary: Card's "Q" Document
Review: This book is OSC "Q" document. His three mains series-Ender, Alvin Maker, and Homecoming-all trace themselves back to this collection of stories. Jason Worthing ins Ender Wiggin, the Tinker is Alvin Maker, and the sweep of history in both "Saga" and "Homecoming" are rooted in the Book Of Mormon. In fact, it is this sweep of history that appeals so much to me. It rivals "Foundation" and "Dune," and Card has a better sense of individual humans within the flow of time.
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Summary: My favorite of Orson Scott Card's
Review: ....This is one of the most diverse and moving stories (or collection of stories) that I have ever read, and my favorite of his many masterpieces. The genre moves back and forth between sci-fi and fantasy, always fantastic, always believable. In other works he has come across a bit preachy - in this one, I was so engrossed in the story and the characters and so involved in their dillemas that I didn't notice the moral until I closed the book. As always, he keeps the stories moving with a mystery - it's hard to believe that this was originally a set of independent stories, they come together so well and conclude each other beautifully. It's unfortunate that this book is so hard to find in big chain bookstores, which don't seem to know that he wrote anything beyond the Ender books. I recommend 'The Worthing Saga' to everyone.
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Summary: A story filled with compassion and character!
Review: This book combines "The Worthing Chronicle" with the other stories Card wrote which detail the tales told in the chronicle. Jason Worthing, a poor young man, bears witness to the decline of a human empire based on sleep through time and is sent away with the empire's malcontents to create a new human colony. Why is pain and fear and aging and dying necessary? Jason tells his story to a future colonist and tries to explain what happened and why in a series of tales from his origin and the early colony. What sticks with me about this book though is the compassion and humanity of the characters and how all the wisdom and miraculous power is no substitute for that compassion, character and humanity. This is a great book! Why does God allow pain and suffering? Any book that comes close to explaining why certainly deserves reading. But the humanity of the characters is what will grab you and make you want to read this book again. This book will make you feel,laugh, and cry.
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Summary: A Mormon theodicy.
Review: Like most of Card's fiction, the book is heavily influenced by his Latter-day Saint heritage. God is a mortal man who hibernates in orbit, coming to the surface every several generations to provide guidance for his stumbling "children." Due to a mishap en route, the colony ship was damaged and the hibernating colonists that survived lost their memories. Jason Worthing, the pilot of the ship, was the only one to survive and thus is responsible for guiding a civilization from infancy to the space age. Oh, and Worthing is a telepath. He eventually reproduces, creating a race of telepaths. Eventually they become powerful enough to control the minds of others, most notably to remove pain and avert injury. Worthing's descendants take it upon themselves to rid the universe of all pain and suffering. Eventually, though, the telepaths decide they are depriving the inhabitants of the universe of something important by keeping them from suffering. The story is told by an inhabitant of a backwater village who writes Worthing's story as Worthing dictates it to him (just like the alleged ancient prophet-historian Mormon). In the conclusion, Worthing decides to use his power one last time to save a child and her father in a scene reminiscent of the Atonement of Christ. The last part of the book is a series of short stories that are intended to provide background for the world in which the story takes place. They are mediocre and not worth reading. The first part of the book, however, is quite interesting and is (alas!) probably the best characterization of the Mormon view of God and the problem of evil.
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Summary: What is the nature of morality?
Review: recently re-read The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card. This book really matters to me, on a number of different levels. It's not his most touching novel and by no means does it have the best characters. But it examines the nature of morality in a direct, simple manner that I've not found in too many other books. The premise is that, due to genetics, a race of super beings exists, and they've saved humankind from all pain--they watch over everyone else. No more physical injuries--if you cut off your hand, they can heal it from afar. No more mental anguish--if your parent dies, they make it seem as though it was a year ago. No more social problems--bastards are prevented in the womb, and similar actions have no consequences. And that's the fundamental issue. What does it mean to be an adult human being when actions have no consequences? Without choice, what is morality? These are issues that religions and philosophers have struggled with for thousands and thousands of years, but I like Card's answer. In addition to the main novella, the book also contains a set of short stories that 'back up' the main one. Just as the Silmarillion, while not a fantastic read, enhances your appreciation of Middle Earth, these backing stories add depth to the Worthing universe. It's not often that you get a chance to read this underlying material, and that's another thing that makes this book unique. It's also fantastic to see Orson Scott Card evolve as a writer. He was able to pick and choose the best of these short stories, but even so, you can still see him pay homage to the writers he read (as he mentions in the preface) as well as develop ideas of his own. It's a great book, and I highly recommend it.
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Summary: Stunning insight into humanity
Review: I have never read a book like this. The start felt uneven, but it tugged at my curiosity as the characters revealed themselves. This book had so much to say, so much insight into humanity. Everything this man showed me about his characters touched a place deep inside of me that spoke of truth being revealed, in all it's awsome beauty and horrifying ugliness. Orson Scott-Card, thankyou for sharing such a powerful insight, this book is a timeless classic that offers value far beyond entertainment -If only the Bible could be so honest.
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