I haven't set aside a shelf titled "science-fantasy" but now and then there are books that should be called that. This is a slightly odd book in a couple of ways. It's firmly a fantasy but set in a science fiction universe with a science fiction set-up. I found the book's opening interesting and was drawn into the story. Sadly it tends to lag badly in several places gets bogged down often. Aside from that the story itself is an interesting one and I think many will like it.There is something I f...

I'm not an Orson Scott Card hater and though I despise many of his politcal views I am a fan of a lot of his work, especially the Ender Game series which think is terrific. This one, I just didn't like. It wasn't horrible, but it is certainly nowhere near as good as the Ender series. Plus, all of the things that I don't like about Card (e.g., politics and moralizing) seemed to be front and center in this story. It was just too much and I didn't enjoy reading it.

Here's the biggest problem with this book: Card's a terrible world-builder. (Okay, the biggest problem might've been that whoever edited this book didn't feel comfortable telling Orson Scott Card that big chunks needed to be rewritten or scrapped, but I can't be too hard on our hypothetical editor: this book came out in 92, right when Card was big.) Sure, he's fine when telling us about his world - this is a book about a matriarchy, a city ruled by women, a city where women hold power, and no ma...

The first I realized right off the bat was that this book was a retelling of the "Book of Mormon." Not the entertaining (and not-so-accurate) musical, but the actual book. Instead of Nephi, the main character is called Nafai. His brothers Laman, Lemuel, and Sam become Elemak, Mebbekew, and Issib. And instead of God leading the way, it's the Oversoul, a supercomputer that watches over humanity on the planet Harmony over the past forty million years.At first I thought this was pretty cool and a ne...

I liked this whole sci-fi series. I've heard that it has a lot of Mormon themes in it (the author is Mormon or lapsed Mormon or something like that) but to be honest, I didn't notice it at the time I was reading it and it didn't interfere with my enjoyment. Dramatic stories, fun characters, big mysterious computers...

This series had good potential, and I liked this novel, but once the series started getting "preachy" I dropped it like a hot potato. Card is a perfectly decent writer, though his style is pretty straightforward and lacking much flourish, but he let's his personal beliefs creep into most of his works. If it were just a couple of his novels that were thinly veiled Mormon mythologies it would be fine, but a large percentage of his later work is very colored by his religious beliefs. This novel and...

What an interesting and odd book. I think it was a good idea that I found out in advance that this was a retelling of the Book of Mormon, because I was more understanding of what Card was doing in terms of describing a "chosen one" both in a fantasy sense but also as an apology for revelation in the real world. But there's a central problem here. The entire premise hangs on the idea that the God of this universe is a computer created by people. That being the case, and especially since the chara...

I really enjoyed reading this book. I liked the descriptions of the cultural and political systems used in the setting as they are very different from any other kind I have known of. I have also gotten to like many of the characters, and even some of their strange names, though a few of them still bother me (such as "Luet").The only reason that I gave this book four stars rather than five is that I would have liked for it to surprise me a bit more. Being very familiar with the story that it is b...

The Memory of Earth has an INCREDIBLY compelling plot line with sub-par execution. The central idea is that we (humans) destroy earth through our warmongering, destructive natures. Some escape earth and traverse space to set up shop on Harmony. Harmony is so named because that is the goal -- curb human ingenuity so that we can never develop super-civilizations (think: we live in a global economy now; everything is readily accessible; the North Koreans are developing missiles that would reach LA,...

MEMORY is one of those books you either love or you hate. Well, let me revise that. Love, like, or hate.I liked this book. It reminded me a good deal about DUNE (which if you haven't read yet, you should). It has a strange culture, one that mixes old school tech--like horse-back riding and actually walking from place to place and swords and arrows--with cool new tech--clearly illustrated by the Oversoul's mental blocking and Issib's flotation devices.Card draws up a fascinating group of people,

RatingReview*** This review originally appeared on Out of this World Reviews. ***So I'd never read anything by Orson Scott Card before. Of course I had heard of him and seen his books all over, but he was just one of those authors I never quite got around to reading. While that misstep has now been corrected, I had to put down The Memory of Earth.I fully intended to read the book front to back, but something had been nagging me almost since the beginning. Given that I was a newcomer to Card's wo...

This was the first Orson Scott Card novel I read and I liked it a lot. If I remember correctly I went through the five books in this saga (Homecoming Saga) in about two weeks. Several years later I found out that the series is loosely based on the Book of Mormon (Orson Scott Card is mormon). Go figure.

I admire how the author creates complex characters with plenty of pathos (except the villain - he's one dimensional), but the plot doesn't quite come together. It is the first in a series and interesting. The author is good at his craft. The book, Scythe, by Neal Shusterman has a similar premise that does come together.

Fans of ENDER'S GAME--BEWARE! This is not on par with that novel in any way. Personally, I can't believe how many of the novels within this series I've read when I realize I should have ended with this one. To me, this novel felt like it was one of Card's many forgotten manuscripts, written while he was a writer honing his craft, left at the bottom of a desks drawer in a beat up manila folder to gather dust. Then, when the Ender novels garnered much appraisal & awards, Card's publisher must have...

Once upon a time, I was a huge fan of Orson Scott Card. I eagerly devoured his short stories, and read his series with high anticipation.. and was never disappointed. Back in those days, his moral messages were heavy, but struck a note that was universal.I don't know what happened, but I know exactly WHEN it happened.. it was in the middle of the Ender's series.. suddenly the book got preachy, complete with bible quotes and a cast of characters so moralizing that I was barely able to stomach the...

The Memory of Earth left me wondering if it is blasphemous for a Mormon to compare God to a computer? The re-telling of the Book of Mormon as science fiction works to create a sense of familiarity, which anyone who knows the Old Testament (let alone the Book of Mormon) will feel as they read the book. The most interesting aspect of this book for me, wasn't the story or the characters, but musing throughout on archetypal story-lines and the moral questions raised and answered by scripture/fiction...

This had shades of Asimov's Foundation series, mainly the parts that I liked without the parts I didn't. I felt connected to characters and sucked in to the interesting culture, loved the bits about how there were archaic sayings that had lost meaning and technology that had been lost this far out into humanity's future. Also getting a bit of a sense of the Biblical story of Joseph and his visions and having brothers who resent him. Definitely looking forward to reading more and have not felt le...

Orson Scott Card is a very creative science fiction and fantasy writer! This book (series) is a great look into the philosophy of life on other planets and the possibility of higher intelligences. The last books in the series introduce new characters that are not a likeable as the earlier books and the storyline suffers because of it.

I first read O. S. Card a few years ago, the Ender series, before I used goodreads, but at least 2015 or later. I went to the condo's fitness center the other day to see if they actually got someone to do routine maintenance on the Apollo 5 machine. Well, they had and the machine was like new instead of a worrisome trap. I don't really exercise, but I don't like it when a machine falls into disrepair. Still, in between repetitions, I found a small shelf with some books and games. One of the book...

What a fascinating little story - like some of his other work, it has biblical overtones, but it is set in the far distant future. The planet Harmony is guarded by an AI called the Oversoul that keeps peace by shaping the minds of its people to avoid advanced technology. Its people can hear the Oversoul, if they listen carefully, so the story has themes about prayer and faith, but the Oversoul clearly isn't God, so there are complexities about how much to trust the machine and whether the machin...

This is a difficult book to recommend seeing as it takes about 175 pages until it gets good, and then ends abruptly (in an attempt to get you to read the sequels no doubt) but when it is good, it’s really good, but for too much of the novel it moves at a sluggish pace with dull and uninteresting world building that never feels like it pays off. The annoying part is those good sections do make me want to read the sequels just to find out what happens.

The story was a little hard to get into in the beginning, maybe since the names are very strange. The biblical parallels are obvious, yet they pull the reader deeper into the story.

Starts slow in the build up to an intriguing story: people's thinking is being surpressed (genetic manipulation, an implant?, some kind of waves?) but the Powers that Be slowly lose their grip and people are starting to feel free and to think for themselves. But can they?

If I hadn't known the story (Nephi from the Book of Mormon), I wouldn't have finished it. Some of the religious ideas, family dynamics, and the setting itself in another world were intriguing, but overall the story was bogged down in a whiny teenager's hyper-sexualized thoughts. A wearisome read without much payoff.

The world is inexpertly built, the story drags, and Card is seemingly oblivious to his blatant sexism. Will my obsessive need for a sense of completion force me to read the other four books in this biblical patriarch (mainly Noah, but also Jacob) sci-fi fan-fiction series? Who knows?

More or less by chance I've been reading a lot by Orson Scott Card recently--probably because each title I've picked up seems different enough from the others to make me curious about the author's range. Along the way I've noticed that a fair number of other readers object to the author's themes and messages, calling the writing "preachy," "Mormon propaganda," "religious allegory,' etc. Personally, I wouldn't recognize an LDS message if it bit me on the butt. I do react badly to being preached a...

Classic Orson Scott Card... doesn't sound that interesting from the cover blurb, but the execution of the characters makes it a great story in spite of a somewhat brainy and heavily allegorical story line. Got me thinking about some issues: -What it means to have faith and obey a deity even when you don't agree with or understand why you should... does this make you an idiot/robot, or a very good person? -Utilitarian ethics: Is it better to do an evil thing to stop an even more evil thing from h...

This is the first of an older series of Card's I'd somehow never picked up. Based on ease of acquisition - either from the library or the used bookstores - I assumed that it wasn't very popular among his fans, and may not be very good. I was pleasantly surprised. It's a perfectly decent, solid start to what looks like it'll be an interesting series. Many of the classic Card elements are present: dangerously intelligent children, wildly dysfunctional family and sibling relationships, incredible m...

General: This story is an interesting hybrid between Sci-fi, Religious-"fiction" (more on that later) and Historical fiction. The first of a series of five, it has a unique feel as both historical and Sci-fi, since it's set millions of years in the future, where humans on another planet are prevented from developing technology (like wheels and atomic bombs). Still, within the city of Basilica, characters have developed extensive technology around the arts, music, and even levitation. It seemed p...

A fascinating re-imagining of a story from the Book of Mormon (actually, only the first few chapters of the first book). Card's creative engagement with a familiar text opened new possibilities and gave me an even greater appreciation for the depth of the original story that I had taken for granted. In imagining a more detailed account of the story, he was able to read between the lines of the Book of Mormon, exploring what might have been, and probing theological subjects in non-traditional way...