Pathfinder

Pathfinder, Book 1

By: Orson Scott Card

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki, Kirby Heyborne, Don Leslie, Kristoffer Tabori, Scott Brick

Length: 17 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

Rigg is well trained at keeping secrets. Only his father knows the truth about Rigg’s strange talent for seeing the paths of people’s pasts. But when his father dies, Rigg is stunned to learn just how many secrets Father had kept from him - secrets about Rigg’s own past, his identity, and his destiny. And when Rigg discovers that he has the power not only to see the past, but also to change it, his future suddenly becomes anything but certain.

Rigg’s birthright sets him on a path that leaves him caught between two factions, one that wants him crowned and one that wants him dead. He will be forced to question everything he thinks he knows, choose who to trust, and push the limits of his talent... or forfeit control of his destiny.

©2010 Orson Scott Card (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"The implications of the boys' power to manipulate the past unfold cleverly…, feeding into the Machiavellian political intrigue for a pulse-pounding climax….Card's many fans will be thrilled by this return to his literary roots.” ( Kirkus)

The Start of an Enjoyable Path

Pathfinder fits well into the sci-fi/fantasy genre, with lots of fantasy overtones and settings ("magic", more of a medieval feel) with scientific explanations. This setting again enables Orson Scott Card (of Ender's Game fame) to demonstrate his amazing story weaving abilities.

Rigg is forced onto a journey by the death of his father, being told to find a sister he never knew he had, and learning throughout that he's not who he thought he was. There are lots of twists and turns throughout his journey, multiplied by the way this story plays with time.

The reading itself was generally well done, although having different voices reading different chapters hurt my immersion at times. Overall, all of the readers had good voices, but were just different enough for me to get distracted. The story itself was worth the minor problems in reading, and made this well worth a listen.

Long, and almost worth it

I enjoyed 'The Lost Gate' much much more than this story, which was interesting, great characters, well narrated, a good way to pass the time, but just not quite enough 'there' was there for me to give it the full 4 stars.
I would read any sequel to this book, as this book sort of gives the impression of being the 'warm up' for a long series.
I think that having characters who can time-travel works against the dramatic pacing of any book and OSC comes as close as possible to making it work. I almost had the feeling like I was listening to the world's best, and longest shaggy dog tale.

Loved it! Ended abruptly though.

Any additional comments?

This books as fantastic. I would suggest you read this right after the previous book as it does not include any intro or back story before it starts off. It gets right into the actions.

It took me some time to remember what the original plat was since it had been some time since I read the previous book.

The story is good and moves along very quickly. I did find the ending a little odd and abrupt. There will definately be another in this series.

Naration was fantastic and the performers from the previous book returned.

FIRST BOOK OF A SERIES

I enjoyed the Ender series but found that they were standalone novels. This book is not. I realize that this is the first book of a series ( Two so far, I believe) but still I would wish for some sort of conclusion which there is not with 'The Pathfinder'. I also did not enjoy the constant switching of narrators. When I first looked at the list of narrators I thought that it was going to be a cast... it is not. To me, change for change sake. That being said i enjoyed the novel and I enjoyed the concepts utilized in the story, complicated at times but fun! Read this novel knowing that you have to read the next to get fulfillment. If this is too much of a commitment, skip it.

Could have been 200 pages less!

Let me be brief and to the point unlike this novel. The writer was too intelligent and did too much explaining, had the characters argue/pro verses con. A 14 year old boy was smarter than everyone! Although it work in Ender, this wasn't near as good! In the beginning it had a lot of potential! But as it went forward, it dragged. I already read reviews to the next book and decided it's over right here and now. Don't waste your time. Btw, I think the narrators did as good as they could with the horrible writing they were given.

Couldn't put it down

I will not give anything away but I will tell at this moment it is 2:15 am. Yes, I do have to get up in just a few hours but I just couldn't stop the book.

Disappointed

I'm a fan of several of Card's previous books and like stories involving time travel, but I found the discussion of time travel in this book tedious and the main character too perfect. The switching between narrators didn't help. I won't buy the sequel. Two-and-a-half stars if that were possible.

Orson Scott Card writing about talented children

Orson Scott Card is both blessed and cursed with being able to write books about very gifted children better than anyone I know. It is a blessing because with few exceptions his books are very good.

The negative is that his stories are reminiscent of each other, even when they have different settings and genres. Pathfinder is more fantasy (at least in the first book) than science fiction or dystopian. There are two storylines that do not quite merge in this book. I assume that we will learn more in future books.

What I think is happening is that a colony ship from Earth (the first one) had something unexpected happen when they tried to move through a fold in space. Instead of jumping something odd happened. We really do not know for sure what happened through most of the book.

The majority of the book concerns a boy of 13. He can see the paths of people and animals. He knows where they go and how long since they have passed. He knows what or who it was that passed through the space.

Early in the book his father dies. He is told to find his sister (that he didn’t know he had and that he has a mother, again that he thought was dead).

The rest of the book is the story of a very bright and very well trained boy learn to interact with a world that he was trained for, but did not actually know. He had grown up as a hunter and trapper on the very edge of society. But to find his sister he most travel to the capital and experience what he has only heard about.

Along the way he finds a friend that also has a gift. Together they have the power to change the world.

Of course there is conflict, and danger, and intrigue. And there are other characters that give their lives or at least are willing to.

Reading this has made me want to go back and read about Ender Wiggins. Ender is the classic Orson Scott Card character. This was very good and I really did enjoy it. But what it made me want to do was read about my favorite Card character. The rest of the series is not out yet. So I don’t know how it will turn out. But it has potential.

There were multiple voices and not all of them were as successful as others. But it has Stefan Rudnicki and he is my favorite reader and the producer of all of Orson Scott Card’s audiobooks.

Interesting concept, lackluster execution

I like the concept of the storyline, but the frequent and overly detailed dissertations on the mechanics of space time manipulation bogged down the flow of the story. I could not maintain a consistent level of interest

I also feel cheated after investing so much time and dragging my way through the story only to find an incomplete ending. I did not know this book was part of a series, but even if I had, I still expect the majority of the loose ends to be tied up and major problems to be solved by the end of a book.

All of this amounts to me being annoyed enough that I will probably not continue with the rest of the series.

Pathfinder

It was a very interesting book. I would not recommend it for a novice reader as one has to be able to piece together the overarching plot from two plots occurring 11000 years apart. You must also be able to grasp abstract concepts as time travel functions very different from most sci-fi novels. For the practiced reader however this book is extremely engaging, a sought after trait once a reader exceeds a certain point.