Books

Book 17: The Ships of Earth – Orson Scott Card

Of the three novels so far, this was my least favorite. It dealt mostly with the journey from Basilica to the original ships that brought humans to the planet of Harmony. It was bogged down in details of the travel and the minor arguments between the main characters.

Although it was interesting to learn more about each of the characters we met in the other novels, but to be completely honest it became trite and somewhat annoying. I think that Card has a great writing style, but when it gets to personal intrigue and politics it gets a bit annoying and incredibly tedious, but in the end it adds plenty of new dynamics even if they are slightly wonky most of the time. Between the last book and this book I’m getting tired of what amounts to pure whiny-ness of most of the main characters, they’re honestly annoying and have very little room for growth as characters.

I did find this book particularly interesting as Card brought up a couple of interesting feminist points of views and has done so somewhat throughout each of the novels. Now I’m not saying Mormonism and feminism are mutually exclusive, but overall they don’t seem all that compatible. What with what the Mormon’s preach against homosexuality and women, they seem to be completely at odds to each other, but Card has surprisingly written interesting novels with what could be considered to be colored and influenced by femininity and feminism.

I know to save time and space a couple of the major jumps occurred with such simple paragraphs as ‘they spent many years here in peaceful harmony’ and then fast forwarded. I almost feel as if this novel and the following, Earthfall, could have been combined and much less of the political maneuvering covered. Overall it did add to the five books, but not so much that it was like WOW.

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