Before you read:
This
is a great book to read if you like mystery, revolution, science fiction and a
little fantasy; Orson Scott Card knows just how to mix it all together without
being obvious. All of the chapters start out with a short clip of what seems to
be another story about a boy on a colony starship that is manned by androids,
and the bulk of the book is about another boy named Rigg who is in a setting
that seems to be more like Earth's 1800s. You are left wondering for quite some
time what these two very different situations have to do with one another. All
of the characters are unique and have heart. I love this book because as always
Orson Scott Card explains the science to you.
Pathfinder
is the first book of a saga and it promises to be very interesting.
After
you read(Spoiler Alert):
After
reading this book I cant wait to get my hands on the next one and see what
everyone does next. The expendables are an unknown variable throughout the
entire book. You begin by trusting them because they serve Ram and seem to be
your normal everyday garden variety android but then you throw in the 16 Rams
and they instantly annihilate 15 of them. For a minute you are left with a what
the hell feeling, then everything is explained to you and you understand the
necessity. Then you are left thinking about Ram and how he ordered the
expendables to kill the other Rams and the only reason they obeyed the one Ram
was because he didn’t say immediately like the others, so his sentence ended
before theirs. Talk about close call.
I
love Rigg because he as so many skills. And he is one of those altruistic
individuals. I think that’s why I like Orson Scott Card books, because the main
characters are all innately good people who are given these huge challenges to
overcome. Rigg and the rest of the gang managed to escape the city and make it
to the border; and the way they get through is ingenious, creative and
inventive! Of course they had to be to cross such a loathsome but effective
wall. I love the time traveling and how it takes more than some silly machine
to do it, it takes practice and skill. And it was so interesting the way
Param's skills worked, Mr. Card how the hell did you come up with that?!?!
The
idea to make 16 different colonies and let the 16 hopefully different cultures
develop was magnificent. I cant help but wonder if the people in the other
colony sections have stayed the same and only the cultures are different or if
they have mutated in some way as well. Or if by some accident of human nature
and biology the people are identical and managed to marry the same people as
the people in the other colonies. But even if it started out that way it would
probably stray after time because of accidental deaths. Or I wonder if the
expendables would kill the same genetic match in the other colonies to keep
them all the same for some sort of experiment. Now my imagination is running
away with me, I better stop while I'm ahead.
In
summary this was a very intriguing book and I cannot wait to get my hands on
the next one and find out what has happened in all the other colonies.
