Ruins

Pathfinder, Book 2

By: Orson Scott Card

Narrated by: Orson Scott Card, Stefan Rudnicki, Kirby Heyborne, Emily Janice Card

Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

Features a new exclusive introduction read by author Orson Scott Card.

From the author of Ender’s Game, the major motion picture!

A complex fate. A deadly path. Book two in the New York Times bestselling series Publishers Weekly calls “an epic in the best sense.”

When Rigg and his friends crossed the Wall between the only world they knew and a world they could not imagine, he hoped he was leading them to safety. But the dangers in this new wallfold are more difficult to see. Rigg, Umbo, and Param know that they cannot trust the expendable, Vadesh - a machine shaped like a human, created to deceive - but they are no longer certain that they can even trust one another. But they will have little choice. Because although Rigg can decipher the paths of the past, he can’t yet see the horror that lies ahead: A destructive force with deadly intentions is hurtling toward Garden. If Rigg, Umbo, and Param can’t work together to alter the past, there will be no future.

The adventure, suspense, and time travel continue in this second installment in the critically acclaimed New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestselling Pathfinder series.

©2012 Orson Scott Card (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

great

another book down. love the works and worlds created by card. one more in this series, but always hoping for more

Face Path

As time passes new paths, and new ways to traverse them appear. Card continues to explore his gravity as time travel system in this exciting middle chapter that was written after he saw the latest alien reboot.

Better than the first book!

The first book in the series was good, but so far the second book is much better!

Too much arguing between the characters.

Too much arguing going on between the characters. It distracted from the storyline.

Card's Best Series Since Ender

Well, after waiting a year and a half for this book, I have to say it both meets my expectations and falls short in a few areas. It is definitely a different book than Pathfinder. Whereas the first book reads much like a fantasy story at first, where you know next to nothing about the world, this book is all about answers, or at least figuring them out. Almost everything we learned in the first book gets challenged or turned on its head. This book keeps you in fascination at the layers and layers of truth and mystery and history revealed, while being a time travel romp across many more lands than we saw in Pathfinder. The book ends well too, with a gripping end scene and a good setup for the end.

Like other reviewers though, I felt that there was a bit too much distrust in the characters this time. It's funny because I didn't really see that developing in the first book. I feel almost as though the author needed to beef up the book's size and so he put in tons and tons of inner thoughts and doubts in the characters. I also found a lot of similarities between this series and the Ender series because of that. Rigg has many personality similarities to Ender, and even the plot reuses a lot of themes from Speaker for the Dead, such as concepts of impending planetary destruction, genocide and the price of winning. Maybe it's just because I listened to it recently too, but I felt a lot of the common Card themes come back into play here.

Overall I enjoyed this book and this series as much as I have the Ender series, and I can't wait for the conclusion of the story.

Gave Me a Headache

Pathfinder: Book 1 was entertaining and Orson Scott Card is rich and famous because he is a good author. Ruins: Pathfinder Book 2 was less interesting because the characters were constantly arguing with each other. I can visit my Brother and Sister if I want to hear screaming, pouting and lying. No need to use a credit when the real thing is free.

Only wish there was a 3rd book!!

I am most certainly a fan of OSC and this 2 book series is typical OSC. They capture you with his imaginative well defined characters and a storyline filled with extraordinary human powers, time travel and futuristic planetary colonization. Two thumps up!! On to my next OSC adventure....

Just really good

Card keeps the magic alive in the second part of the Pathfinder series. Please excuse me while I download the the third and final book in the series.

Author comments spoil the book.

The book is really good. But some genius decided to put the author comments as chapter one. So skip this if you don’t want spoilers.

Needs some serious editing

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

To a point. The premise of the story was good - Rigg and his companions cross through different wallfolds trying to learn about them and how to save the world. However, there was so much arguing and endless bickering among the characters as well as endless philosophizing and conjecturing that I found myself yelling at the narrator to just shut up and get on with it!

What could Orson Scott Card have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

The author needed to do some serious editing. I felt like a like a lot of the story was simply filler, buying him time to figure out what the characters should do next. Page after page of bickering does not make a good story. Page after page of listing to whining, self-absorbed characters did not inspire me to read further. Nor did I need endless "what ifs" as characters pondered one weighty theory after another.

Did the narrators do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

I would have preferred a single narrator. The woman who read Param's point of view and the man that read Umbo's were more animated and more interesting than the narrator who read Rigg's point of view, who sometimes was dead-pan to the point of being monotone.

Did Ruins inspire you to do anything?

Throw my iPod across the room.

Any additional comments?

The Pathfinder was an interesting book and I truly hoped Ruins would be as good. Unfortunately, it wasn't. There were just enough interesting events to keep me going but more than once I considered giving up. It just got so boring and frustrating at times. If I had been actually reading this, I could have perhaps skipped over all the incredibly tedious parts of this book but with the audio version, that was impossible. I will read the next one in the hopes that it is more like Pathfinder and less like the pedantic Ruins.