Orson Scott Card Pathfibder Review Common Sesne Media

Book Review

Pathfinder — "Pathfinder" Series

Orson Scott Card

Science Fiction

Credits

Readability Historic period Range

12 and up

Publisher

Simon Pulse, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Sectionalization

Awards

Booklist Editors' Choice for Youth, 2010

Year Published

2011

Book Review

Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card has been reviewed by Focus on the Family'due south spousal relationship and parenting magazine. It is the first book in the "Pathfinder" series.

Plot Summary

Ram Odin is the highly trained airplane pilot of a starship conveying sleeping human colonists away from Earth and toward the planet of Garden. Since Garden is so far away from Earth, Ram hopes to leap through a fold in space-time, and cut 900 years off their journeying. Ram'due south only company is an "expendable," a car that simulates human life so well that it is capable of making decisions and provides him with visitor throughout the journey. If Ram's starship makes the bound, other ships from Earth will follow with valuable supplies and other colonists.

The spring is made successfully, but with an unintended consequence. Xviii other copies of Ram'southward ship are created, consummate with copies of the colonists, Ram and the expendable. But they are not created in the nowadays. All 19 ships detect themselves 11,191 years in the by. Ram orders the expendables on the other ships to kill the other Rams. They do.

To maximize the chance of human life developing successfully on Garden and minimize the problems that could arise by having multiple human copies in the same identify at the same time with the same DNA, Ram and the expendables concord to separate Garden into 19 different areas separated past an impassable wall. When the humans learn to breach the wall, they will once again be in charge of the expendables and privy to any data that the expendables will choose to keep from them.

Rigg is a poor kid who spends most of his time in the high land higher up Stashi Falls. The calendar that began at xi,191 reached year zero when he was three. Now he is 13, and he and his father travel together through the wilderness, trapping animals to sell their pelts in the village of Fall Ford. Despite their humble trade, Father is insistent that Rigg'due south pedagogy include the written report of mathematics, languages, astronomy and other subjects that Rigg cannot imagine ever existence useful for a life in the woods. Merely Rigg has one skill that does non need to be taught. He tin can run into the paths that every living animate being, animal or man, leaves as it travels through the world — except one. He cannot see Begetter'southward path. Father works with him to hone this inborn power and warns him never to tell anyone else.

Just and then Male parent dies. Rigg never sees his broken body, since Father warns him away. Father's trunk has been pierced past the branches of a falling tree, and he doesn't want Rigg to have the grisly prototype stored in his memory. With his dying breaths, he tells Rigg to take the furs to Fall Ford and sell them. And then he is to ask Nox, the woman who runs the rooming house, how to find his sister. Rigg is shocked to larn that both his sister and female parent are nevertheless alive. But Begetter doesn't respond to his frantic questions. After waiting for a suitable length of time, Rigg tells Male parent that he loves him. And then he leaves without looking back.

The most perilous part of the trek back to town is crossing above Stashi Falls. There is no span, only a series of boulders. Rigg must bound from i to the side by side, carrying a heavy load of furs on his back. Only when he is halfway across, he sees a modest boy attempting to brand the crossing from the other side. Rigg can come across that the route the boy has chosen is one of the most dangerous — many of the paths lead over the edge of the falls. When the boy slips, Rigg abandons his furs in a desperate effort to save him. But just equally he is about to grab the boy'south manus, time slows downwards and the paths morph into real, solid people. I man in particular blocks him from reaching the boy. When the man latches onto Rigg'southward arm, Rigg peels his fingers abroad, but the boy plummets over the falls anyway, time speeds upwards and the human disappears.

Unfortunately, Umbo, the boy'south brother, was watching from the banking company. Umbo believes Rigg killed his brother and races dorsum to town. By the time Rigg arrives, Umbo has already shared his version of the events, and the men of the town are determined to kill Rigg. He hides in Nox'due south rooming house until she convinces the townspeople that Rigg is innocent. She besides tells Rigg that his mother and sister are in the city of Aressa Sessamo. She gives Rigg a bag of 19 jewels and a letter of credit.

Rigg leaves Fall Ford alone, but Umbo catches upward with him. His father kicked him out, and he wants to join Rigg on his journey. Rigg agrees but is confused that he and Umbo seem to have differing memories about the fable of a sure Wandering Saint. Rigg realizes that the Wandering Saint was the man who stopped him from rescuing Umbo'southward brother and that by interfering with the past, he has changed anybody's memory except his own. He learns that Umbo also has a special skill — he can ho-hum down time. By working together, Rigg and Umbo tin utilise their combined talents to travel into the past. When they reach a tavern in the boondocks of Leaky'south Landing, they are befriended past the innkeeper, Loaf, and his married woman, Leaky. But when Leaky does their laundry, she discovers the jewels Rigg had sewn into his article of clothing. Loaf, a retired soldier, offers to escort the boys to O — the nearest city that has a bank. This will allow Rigg to liquidate one of the jewels for plenty cash to travel the rest of the style to Aressa Sessamo.

In O, Rigg learns that Father's education has prepared him for the civilized world. He negotiates skillfully with the banker, exchanging a gem for the needed funds. On the twenty-four hour period they programme to get out O, the threesome decides to visit the tower of O. They realize that the huge world within the tower is actually a map of the globe (maps are illegal) and that the wall enclosing their country, or wallfold, also encloses 18 other wallfolds on the planet of Garden. While leaving the tower, Rigg sees a future version of Umbo alarm him to tell Loaf to hibernate the jewels. Loaf does — merely in time.

The three of them are arrested by General Denizen and forced aboard a riverboat heading to Aressa Sessamo. Apparently, the jewel Rigg had sold was a well-known ancient jewel that had been lost centuries earlier, and the letter of credit named him as the lost prince of the deposed royal family unit. Loaf and Umbo manage to escape while Rigg is beingness interrogated. Loaf and Umbo caput dorsum to Leaky's Landing. Rigg is taken to Aressa Sessamo. Full general Denizen seems pleasant enough and tells Rigg that the family unit resemblance is unmistakable — he is certainly the lost prince. Nonetheless, Rigg lands in solitary solitude for the balance of the journey after pre-emptively rescuing himself from an bump-off attempt.

In Aressa Sessamo, Rigg meets his mother, Hagia Sessamin. Rigg doesn't know how she feels almost his sudden return. The Sessamid Empire was matriarchal and has a history of killing male heirs. Others may see him as a threat to the newly formed People's Republic and desire him dead equally well. He uses all of the rhetoric and political savvy that Begetter taught him and paints himself as a land boy who thinks he's no better than the lowest junior kitchen helper. But he is still astute enough to ask probing questions that brand it uncomfortable for people in power. The common people love him, but Rigg knows he walks a fine line between life and death.

Rigg as well finds and befriends his sis, Param. Similar Rigg, she has a special talent. Param can become invisible by skipping forward in increments of time. Rigg also learns that his real father, Knosso Sissamik, was a scholar. He died while trying to laissez passer through the wall. Rigg gains admission to the library and learns everything he can about his male parent'south enquiry. He is accompanied to and from the library past Olivenko, a young soldier who loved and respected Knosso. During the course of his studies, Rigg realizes that not just is the wall human being-fabricated, just every human beingness and many of the animals and plants on the planet of Garden are not native to the planet. They originated somewhere else.

In the meantime, Umbo learns how to project himself backward in time to give warnings. He and Loaf retrieve the jewels in O and travel to Aressa Sessamo to meet Rigg.

Since the royal family was forbidden to own any property when their rule was overthrown, Rigg, his female parent and his sis are boarding with a wealthy man named Flacommo. When Flacommo is killed 1 morning, Rigg knows he must escape with his family. But his mother is not surprised by the attack, which is led by Full general Denizen. She encourages Rigg and Param to give themselves upwards. She plans to marry the general and create a new dynasty. Rigg and Param know they volition be killed so the general's children can inherit the throne.

Using their combined skills, Rigg, Param and Umbo abscond the city with Loaf and Olivenko. They are no longer condom anywhere in the Republic, so they programme to escape through the wall. Although the wall is transparent and non solid — animals and plants can pass through unharmed — it exerts a powerful forcefulness over humans. Even beingness close to the wall can produce feelings of extreme anxiety and despair. Humans who have attempted to pass through have been driven insane earlier reaching the other side.

With General Denizen'southward men endmost in, Umbo sends Rigg, Loaf and Olivenko back to a betoken in time before the wall existed. They barely brand information technology to the other side alive, as the time Umbo chose was the mean solar day that the 19 starships from Earth were landing on Garden, and he is forced to bring them back to the nowadays before Rigg has fully passed through. Loaf and Olivenko, who have a natural resistance to the wall's ability, rescue Rigg. Merely as they are about to exist captured, Umbo and Param too travel through the wall. They combine their skills to arrive safely earlier Rigg and the others. Merely a surprise awaits them all.

It is Father. Rigg is shocked to see that the man he called Father is withal alive. Simply Begetter doesn't recognize Rigg. Instead, he calls himself an expendable and says that both he and the man Rigg chosen Begetter are machines — that is why Rigg couldn't see Father's path. Now that they accept learned to breach the wall, the expendable must answer the questions of Rigg and his band of travelers. The jewels Rigg carries have the power to shut off all of the walls on Garden. The jewel Rigg tried to sell and is at present in General Denizen's possession will let him to close off the wall effectually his own wallfold — also called the Ramfold. He also learns that travelers from Globe are expected shortly — travelers who expect Garden to be uninhabited and ready to be colonized, not populated with cultures that are eleven,000 years old. And in that location is no telling what those space-travelers might practice.

Christian Behavior

Other Belief Systems

The humans on Garden have developed a belief in gods, saints, ghosts and demons. They build shrines to commemorate legends about these supernatural actors, and children often imitate the stories in their play. Fall Ford reveres a man chosen the Wandering Saint. Male parent is skeptical of this belief in the supernatural, and Rigg agrees — his own meddling with the by is the origin of several legends, and he wonders if many of the legends near gods, demons and saints evolved from similar events where the witnesses simply lacked the knowledge to explain what had happened.

While Rigg, Param and Umbo (along with other characters) display extraordinary abilities, their origin is described as scientific or evolutionary equally opposed to magical. Spells are mentioned in passing.

Say-so Roles

Rigg feels a deep emotional bond with Father. He obeys him, respects him and loves him despite Male parent's demanding and brusk demeanor. Subsequently Father's "death," Rigg realizes just how well Begetter has prepared him for the life outside of Fall Ford. He also realizes how many secrets and lies Father has used to muffle both Rigg'due south and Begetter's true identities.

Loaf and Leaky become surrogate parents for Rigg and Umbo. What begins with their desire to go along 2 ignorant boys safe leads to Loaf risking his life time and once again to help Rigg consummate his mission. Loaf and Umbo develop a special bail. While Loaf and Leaky are rough on the exterior, they are honest and hardworking, and utilize their strength and experience to help the boys in any fashion they tin.

Rigg's female parent is nearly every bit coldly emotionless as the expendables. Lies, secrets and politically correct speech have get her mode of life. While she cares about both Rigg and Param (and plans to weep genuine tears at their funerals), she has no qualms about handing them over to be murdered if it means that she will repossess the throne.

The expendables were created by humans to serve humans. Nonetheless, they are willing to exceed the limits of their stated say-so if they think it will do good humanity as a whole.

General Citizen behaves in a kindly way toward Rigg, all the while threatening to impale and torture his friends and secretly planning to murder Rigg.

Later realizing that he is wealthy, Rigg assumes a position of leadership among his friends. Fifty-fifty afterwards his wealth is stolen (as a fellow member of the royal family he is forbidden to ain anything), his friends proceed to accept his leadership because of his quick thinking, extensive pedagogy and perceptive empathy.

Umbo's father beats him and degrades him regularly, ultimately kicking him out of the house.

Profanity & Violence

Profanity includes the terms b–ch, b–tard and p—, and fictional epithets such as by Silbom's left testicle and by Ram'due south left elbow. Many characters swear by their gods.

People fall over a waterfall to their deaths. Umbo throws rocks at Rigg. The man Rigg calls Father claims to be pierced through the abdomen past the branches of a falling tree. (Rigg later learns that he was lying.) Hagia Sessamin stabs a spy. While attempting to cross the wall in a boat, Rigg'southward father is dragged underwater by a pair of hands.

Expendables impale multiple versions of Ram, snapping their necks. Umbo's begetter beats him.

Sexual Content

An expendable offers to impregnate all of the women aboard the ship with Ram's Dna. He refuses, saying this would be a violation of trust.

Women admit they are infertile. Loaf'south first wife cheated on him with three split men while he was in the regular army. He divorces her and marries Leaky. A servant girl mistakenly thinks Loaf is tipping her to get a sexual favor. The expendables plan to breed humans like puppies. Param is advised to demark her breasts and disguise herself as a boy. Rigg hangs jewels in a pouch between his legs. Various individual body parts are mentioned simply non sexualized.

Give-and-take Topics

Additional Comments

Alcohol abuse: Peasants and rivermen use and abuse alcohol on a regular footing, sometimes becoming violent.

Bodily functions: Rigg and Umbo have no shame when it comes to discussing certain bodily functions. Many conversations and scenes throughout the book include descriptions of the product of waste and urine.

Evolution: Macroevolution is taken equally fact, and the expendables hope to facilitate the further evolution of humanity during the 11,000 years before the arrival of more colonists from World.

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