The Memory of Earth

by Orson Scott Card | Science Fiction & Fantasy |
ISBN: 0812532597 Global Overview for this book
Registered by winglauraloo29wing of Edmonton, Alberta Canada on 2/10/2007
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7 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by winglauraloo29wing from Edmonton, Alberta Canada on Saturday, February 10, 2007
High above the planet Harmony, the Oversoul watches. Its task, programmed so many millennia ago, is to guard the human settlement on this planet--to protect this fragile remnant of Earth from all threats. To protect them, most of all, from themselves.The Oversoul has done its job well. There is no war on Harmony. There are no weapons of mass destruction. There is no technology that could lead to weapons of war. By control of the data banks, and subtle interference in the very thoughts of the people, the artificial intelligence has fulfilled its mission.But now there is a problem. In orbit, the Oversoul realizes that it has lost access to some of its memory banks, and some of its power systems are failing. And on the planet, men are beginning to think about power, wealth, and conquest.

Journal Entry 2 by winglauraloo29wing from Edmonton, Alberta Canada on Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Sending as a RABCK to Miu1983. Enjoy!

Journal Entry 3 by MiuM from Kaarina, Varsinais-Suomi / Egentliga Finland Finland on Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Thank you for the book! :)
I was in another town (and after that also in another country) so I couldn't get my hands on the book earlier.I´ll read it when I find the proper time.

Journal Entry 4 by MiuM from Kaarina, Varsinais-Suomi / Egentliga Finland Finland on Sunday, October 7, 2007
This writer has disturbingly mixed some themes from christianity with sci-fi.(Partly I foud it somewhat mockery towards certain aspects at first, but it's one point of the view. And clever one.) The people have old and new, future and past in their lives in most odd ways. Weird book, but it draws your attention. Quite an interesting book to read, though I'm not just yet quite finished with it.
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9.10.2007 The book is finished now, and I really found it as a different one. So much it had snatched from religious views, and apparently more is to come, because from the first page can be seen that this bookseries has four more parts. I'd like to read those too. Great, but then again, I like fantasy, sci-fi and etc.

Journal Entry 5 by MiuM from Kaarina, Varsinais-Suomi / Egentliga Finland Finland on Tuesday, March 11, 2008
I'm planning to give this forward as a finnish book-ring in the future, so that the last reader will send it back to me.
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26.3.2008

I'm sending this forward as a book-ring in Finland, and I hope that the last reader on the list will send it back to me.

This book is special in a sense: it has never been published in Finland, at least I think so, because I haven't found it in any library databases. (Not even as an english version.) So this is an unique opportunity to read Homecoming-series scifi. If you really like this first part, you can ask me to send the second part "The Call of Earth" as a book-ring too.(and so on, and so on... because I have all the five parts of this series! Just remember: I want them back after the book-ring.:) )

You can join the book-ring by sending me PM. Tell me also the name of the town, where you live, so I can have some sense in the posting order.

THE BOOK-RING PARTICIPANTS:
1. Liinuskainen (Lehmo)
2. Valpuri+puoliso (Kuopio)
3. Hippolein (Helsinki)
4. Purina (Helsinki)
5. Seethroughfaith (Turku)
6. MeiMeiK (Turku)

-->Last one: send the book back to me (=Miu1983). Thank you.

PS: I hope that you write what you really thought of the book in the journal, and maybe add some picture too. (Not obligatory of course. :)... )

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EDIT: 8.4.2008
OH, Liinuskainen has discovered some disturbing things about the book. I just thought it as an original scifi with some views from the Bible (the Old testament). Now it's kinda sad to know the origins, because that has changed my attitude towards the book. :( It wasn't as original invention as I thought.
Liinuskainen's journal entry has some spoilers in it, so you mustn't read it before the book, if you like to find out things yourself. :)

Journal Entry 6 by MiuM at on Monday, March 31, 2008

Released 16 yrs ago (3/31/2008 UTC) at

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

The book-ring has started moving. Enjoy! :)

Journal Entry 7 by Liinuskainen from Lieksa, Pohjois-Karjala / Norra Karelen Finland on Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Arrived yesterday thank you kindly. I will read this as soon as possible.

Journal Entry 8 by Liinuskainen from Lieksa, Pohjois-Karjala / Norra Karelen Finland on Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Unfortunately I don’t have digital camera, so I won’t be able to take photos. But I certainly will tell how I felt about this book :o)

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WARNING: this contains spoilers, so if you haven’t read this book and if you don’t want to know what happens, don’t read this!
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I actually have a bit mixed feelings with this one. When I started to read the book, one of the very first thought was: “Oh great, another young teenage boy, who thinks that he is already so grown up, but instead he is really quite immature and needs to learn (and do) all kinds of things in order to develop”. Well luckily it wasn’t all that bad. Although I had to admit that there were few times I would have wanted to give a whack in the head for certain characters. As the story develops, it’s starts to get more interesting. The plot (and the whole world) seemed interesting and I liked the way this society was done. The difference between man and woman and the fact that these people seemed to have really developed technology and yet they live in a very simple way are intriguing.

But then something weird happened. The more I read, the more familiar the whole story started to feel. But I just couldn’t explain why (or where could I have read something like this before). Until I went to internet and started to find more info about the writer. I found out that the writer is a Mormon and that started to ring the bells. And then Wikipedia confirmed my thoughts: the whole saga seems to be a fictionalization of the first few hundred years recorded in the Book of Mormon. I have actually read the Book of Mormons, I made a book review from it in our Philosophy class when I was in Lukio (upper secondary school).

In book of Mormons a man called Lefi lives in Jerusalem (600 BC). He gets a vision (column of fire) from God. God is telling to Lefi that Jerusalem is going to be destroyed (because of the way the people have lived). People doesn’t believe him, so he is forced to escape with he’s four sons (youngest of them is called Nephi), God leads them to live in the desert and promise them to lead them in to the promised land. Father gets another vision and sends four brothers back to Jerusalem to get the old brass plates (that has important information from the history). One of the brothers goes to Laaban (who has the plates) asks Laaban for the plates and he says no.After that Nephi convinces others to try to buy the plates, so they gather their abandoned wealth. Laaban gets greedy, he wants the riches, but doesn’t give the plates and sends he’s servants to kill the brothers, so they have to escape. Two older brothers get angry and start hitting their brothers severely. telling Laman and Lemuel that, because of his righteousness, the Lord had made Nephi "a teacher and a ruler over them younger brothers, but then comes an angel who stops them. (And they manage get the plates, because God order Nephi to kill Laaban and so on (this is just a short version)). Sounds familiar?

Of course there a quite a lot of things that are not from that book (the way the society is build, that the humankind has left earth millions and millions years ago, developed technology, that oversoul (for at least in this book) is a man-made artificial intelligence and so on (although a lot of it can be seen as a metaphor, or at least that’s the way I interpret it). But the basic plot, (pretty much whole basic plot), is from the book of Mormons.

As I said, my feelings are a bit mixed. Had I not discovered this connection, I probably would have thought this as a pretty basic fantasy book. Personally I’m not very thrilled with this connection to Mormons. And I keep wondering the motives of the writer. I’m not quite sure whether I want to read the rest of the saga. I guess it might be interesting to see how the writer has written rest of the books and what the outcome is.

The book goes next to Valpuri.

Journal Entry 9 by Valpuri from Huittinen, Satakunta Finland on Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The book arrived safely today, thank you! I'll start reading it right away. (Since I noticed the "spoiler warning" above, I won't read previous journal entries before I have read the book myself.)

Journal Entry 10 by Valpuri from Huittinen, Satakunta Finland on Monday, June 16, 2008
At last I did read this book, and I already mailed it to Hippolein today. Sorry for the delay & safe travels for the book!

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I have always enjoyed the writing style of the author very much, and this book was just as nice reading experience as I was hoping for. Story is developing nicely and not too slowly, characters are believable (though a bit stereotypical maybe) and altogether it is a good traditional teenage-growing-up -adventure with some clever sci-fi twists.

However, I can understand the confusion which Liinuskainen and Miu1983 may have experienced discovering the background of the storyline. I myself have read several of Orson Scott Card's books, and I already knew about his personal religious and moralistic beliefs. There are a lot of things I wouldn't agree with him in real life, but I don't want them to prevent me enjoying his books though. For example in the Alvin-series the author was seriously mixing up some real history events and characters, some legends and some things of his own imagination, and I truly loved the world he created from that mixture. I don't believe he is writing books to only promote his own beliefs, but to get readers to thing about moral (or ethical, or religious) issues from different directions. Sci-fi and fantasy are just perfect tools for him to shake ordinary things up a bit and build some strange and beautiful ideas outside of our everyday thinking. Anyway, before signing up for this book ring, I did google Homecoming-series and got interested of this idea of using the plot from religious legend. Since I yet haven't read the Book of Mormon, the connection didn't disturb me at all while reading this book.

Thank you Miu1983 for sharing this experience, and I hope the next readers will enjoy the book as much as I did. Actually the only disappointment came when the book ended so soon... :-) I'm hoping maybe Miu1983 will start another bookring soon enough, so the story will continue? Thanks again!

Journal Entry 11 by winghippoleinwing from Helsinki, Uusimaa / Nyland Finland on Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The book arrived today in Helsinki.
Thanks a lot for making a ring for this book. Look forward to reading it, hope summer doesn't disturb too much ...

Journal Entry 12 by winghippoleinwing from Helsinki, Uusimaa / Nyland Finland on Thursday, July 3, 2008
Have to tell I liked the story, ended a bit too soon to get the hang of everything, but I didn't mind at all that the whole seemed familiar from somewhere. Everybody tries to use the ideas they have, and if this writer used the stories from the Book of Mormon, it doesn't disturb me at all. Some writers use stories from the Bible too, and transform them into Fiction.

Strangely enough, I had all the time the feeling I know something about what it coming later, so now I'm wondering if I managed to read sometimes (probably in Belgium where I went through every SF-book available in the local library) and missed the first book of it. I do hope we get to read the other books too, would be a pity to miss a nice story (and that it certainly was, a nice story about a family somewhere far away, like you expect from Science Fiction or Fantasy writers!)

Seems the book goes then next to Purina ;-)

Journal Entry 13 by winghippoleinwing at By mail, A Bookring -- Controlled Releases on Friday, July 11, 2008

Released 15 yrs ago (7/11/2008 UTC) at By mail, A Bookring -- Controlled Releases

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

This bookring goes today by mail to the next reader: Purina in Helsinki. If all goes well it should arrive on Monday ;-)

Journal Entry 14 by Purina on Monday, July 14, 2008
Arrived today, thank you!

Journal Entry 15 by Purina on Thursday, August 14, 2008
**SPOILERS AHEAD!**

I've read Orson Scott Card's novels before, and I like his Alvin Maker series better than this one.
In fantasy/scifi books, it's really important that you can "see" the world and believe in it. I had trouble with that. The mixture of really old-fashioned world and new high-tech stuff just didn't work in my opinion, even though it's explained why it is so.
I was not too keen on the characters either. Nafai had an annoying habit of analyzing his thoughts and actions for ages before he even does or says anything. It's not believable, especially for a fourteen year old.
There were some surprises in the book. Having the hero brutally murder helpless, unconscious man is something you don't see in most fantasy books. And that made me like Nafai even less. You're supposed to use your own sense and conscience to decide what to do, not just blindly do what the "voices in your head" tell you to. There's a huge religious theme in the book after all, I'd be happier if they concentrated on the free will, rather than blind faith. In that way, this is definitely Old Testament stuff.

But the book was interesting enough to read anyway, thanks to Miu for organizing the bookring. I wouldn't mind reading the second part as well.

Journal Entry 16 by Purina on Friday, August 15, 2008
Seethroughfaith dropped out of the ring, so I mailed it to MeiMeiK today.

Journal Entry 17 by MeiMeiK from Turku, Varsinais-Suomi / Egentliga Finland Finland on Wednesday, August 20, 2008
I have the book now. Thank you purina.

Journal Entry 18 by MeiMeiK from Turku, Varsinais-Suomi / Egentliga Finland Finland on Sunday, October 5, 2008
Finished reading September 28, 2008.

Ok, I try to write my thoughts in english..

I had heard earlier that this series contains very much writers religious thoughts. But I had no idea that the storyline follows so precisely the Book of Mormons as Liinuskainen wrote. Well now I know, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing because religion affects in culture so many ways. We don't even notice how much there are Christian indications in books, movies, music etc. because we have grown up in this cultural environment.

I liked the story and the storytelling was fluent and enjoyable. The world with old and new, womens and mens cultures apart was to me also sometimes a bit hard to understand, it could be also that I just didn't understand all the things in english. The brotherly competitions and maneuvering didn't appeal to my my taste. Finally on page 90 where the testing and resistance of Oversoul started I started found out what was this book about. But later there was again all that maneuvering. That what Nafai had to do in the end was really odd. Nafai had learned how to avoid Oversouls thoughts in his mind and still he obeyed its will and acted against his own moral and nature almost without hesitation. The behaviour reminded me of serious schizophrenia where people hear voices in their head and do what it's saying.

But in the end the book and the idea of Oversoul, Harmony and the whole book was quite interesting and I'm looking forward on reading this whole series. Thanks Miu1983 for organizing the book ring!

Journal Entry 19 by MiuM from Kaarina, Varsinais-Suomi / Egentliga Finland Finland on Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The book is back in its startingplace. Thank you for participating this book-ring. It's interesting to read what you thought of the book.

I myself didn't know it had taken influence from the Book of Mormons, but I'll assure you that the further the series gets the less there is that kind of influence (at least I'd think so, but I don't know what is in the Book of Mormons..). The last two parts are infact very weird, but the mindgames about future that the books offer are clever.

I hope you liked reading the book. I have given the two next books to MeiMeik, and she sends them as a book-ring after reading.

Nice Autumn!

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