Earthborn

I guess you'd call the ending to this one predictable, but I still enjoyed it. No great surprise or cliffhangers, but the usual careful writing you'd expect from Card.

This is roughly the story of Alma the younger and his father Alma. I liked it in that it explored how the son of a prophet could become so hostile toward everything his father stood for. Some reviewers have pointed out that this book does not resolve the essential conflict - what about Harmony and the Oversoul? I confess that when I read these books I assumed that the real mission of the Oversoul was to bring humans back to Earth. But looking back I have to agree with those reviewers. My primary interest in this series is in watching Card re-tell a story that I am familiar with through the Book of Mormon. On that level, I think he succeeded. But for readers that aren't interested in this Mormon influenced story or who aren't interested show more in the religious overtones of this series, I can see that it would be disappointing. show less

After having read some of the other reviews of this volume of the Homecoming series, I thought I would be disappointed. To be quite honest, I even started off the book disappointed. In Earthfall, we finally got to the point of Nafai being a man - no longer a boy - so that things could start to get interesting. But by that time, the escalation betweek him and Elemak was to the point that there was nothing else that could be done. One would kill the other. End of story.

So, in Earthborn, we start off a couple hundred years after the events of Earthfall with an entirely new set of prepubescent heroes. *sigh* Fortunately, they're grown out of their youthful ignorance relatively quickly - so the interesting things can happen.

I thought show more Shedemai's return to living was the most interesting part of the story, so I was somewhat disappointed that she didn't have a more forceful role. Apparently her most public action was at her trial that was ended before it really started. Obviously, her turn as the Messenger of the Keeper was interesting and probably fun for her, but it wasn't public and she never publicly "came out". I thought that may have been a compelling bit of story to tell...

The end though, was a pretty hefty let down for me. I think I would have preferred some closure for Shedemai... How long *DID* she live? What happened with the cloak? Did she have more children? I wanted to see her story resolved... and I was disappointed that Card completed the events surrounding Akma's redemption and left the rest as a exercise for the reader.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the book and powered my way through it in two sessions... but I just wasn't terribly happy with where the author left us... show less

High above Earth orbits the starship Basilica. On board the huge vessel is a sleeping woman. Of those who made the journey, Shedemei alone has survived the hundreds of years since the Children of Wetchik returned to Earth.
She now wears the Cloak of the Starmaster, and the Oversoul wakes her sometimes to watch over her descendants on the planet below. The population has grown rapidly - there are cities and nations now, whole peoples descended from those who followed Nafai or Elemak.

But in all the long years of watching and searching, the Oversoul has not found the thing it sought. It has not found the Keeper of Earth, the central intelligence that alone can repair the Oversoul's damaged programming.

This is a beautiful exploration of what it means to believe, but it was far and away my least favorite OSC series. This, the final book, doesn't cinch all of the themes together for me, and it left me feeling lost as to what I felt was a primary core of the story, the mission and relationship between the Oversoul and the Keeper.

I am in favor of the moral values discussed in this book. That said, this part of the saga was uninteresting in the extreme. The other 4 books were kind of preachy, but those had good stories. The story in this book seems flat and most of it is wasted.

Throughout the series there have been scenes that hearken back to Biblical stories. This book had that too. I don't mind, but an atheist would probably not like any of the books.

This book shares very little with the rest of the Homecoming series, but wouldn't make much sense without having read the rest of the series. It was worth reading once but I doubt I'll reread it any time soon. It continues Card's Book of Mormon-based tale, so if you're pretty familiar with the Book of Mormon, you'll have a pretty good idea of where the whole story is going.