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Pathfinder  By  cover art

Pathfinder

By: Orson Scott Card
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki,Kirby Heyborne,Don Leslie,Kristoffer Tabori,Scott Brick
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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)

What listeners say about Pathfinder

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    2,987
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    1,782
  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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  • 1 Stars
    90
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    2,664
  • 4 Stars
    1,358
  • 3 Stars
    472
  • 2 Stars
    114
  • 1 Stars
    73
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    1,379
  • 3 Stars
    493
  • 2 Stars
    134
  • 1 Stars
    72

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Entertaining and Irritating.

I find myself very conflicted about this book. I like Card and consider him to be a good author. His premise is interesting and entertaining. However, as an audio experience, this book was often irritating. Much of the dialogue throughout is extremely pedantic . For example, if one character says that the people of a town are unfriendly, another character will point out that they haven???t met everyone. If someone suggested that the light goes out in a refrigerator when you shut the door, another will point out that, unless you are inside the refrigerator, you really don???t know. If I was reading the book, I???d probably tend to scan a lot of the dialogue. Audio makes you listen to every irritating exchange. I slogged through it to the end. The ending was okay, but I am not interested in what happens in the next book and will not listen to this book again. I don???t recommend it.

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79 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Story OK, Narration Mixed

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I am a huge OSC fan, having read/listened to many books. This story is not as strong or mature as most stories. Feels half polished. The majority of the narration is good, but the second half of the book sees some narrator changes that are inconsistent and one chapter is downright annoying enough that I stopped playback 4 times. At times I felt like I was listening to Treasure Island. I wish the story and narration was as polished as the excellent Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow on Audible.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Theories about causality and time travel.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Changes in the actual narrator and voicing were very inconsistent in the second half. It detracted from the character development and caused me to pause playback several times.

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61 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great Story.....Crazy Narration

OSC!!!....STOP SWITCHING NARRATORS!

You're making me nuts....or nuttier.... You start with Stefan Rudnicki who defines brilliantly the characters and their voices...the kids, the adults, then .....you get a new chapter....all of a sudden, the voices change....Now The Adult "Loaf", sounds younger than the 13 year old. Its ridiculous. It also disrupts the flow big time. Not the first OSC book to do this. It's like Stefan called in sick that day, so they just let whoever was around do a few chapters. Nuts. Different narrators for the second parallel story would be fine...just not for the same characters!!!

So Great Story....Disruptive narration....

I'm exhausted....

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42 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Bad Narration!

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Good Story bad Narration. The thing I really wanted to point out, is that this book seems to have at least 3 different people reading it. The first narrator is good and you get used to him then they change to a second one for a brief part. But I just got to a new section with a new reader that is so different and frankly over the top theatrical that it has ruined the book for me. I have stopped listening to it and am considering buying the physical book in order to finish the story. very strange choice by whomever recorded this...

How did the narrator detract from the book?

immensely!

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32 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Not my favorite OSC

I've read quite a lot of OSC and I have to disagree with a lot of the reviewers. I found this one really dragged for me. The characters were interesting, as was the story, but there were endless conversations about the intricacies of time travel with the same concepts repeated over and over. I would have found the book moved much more quickly without that. If you read time travel books, you know there are paradoxes and you simply suspend those in your head and keep reading. I felt like he was trying to justify the physics of time travel with these repeated conversations and it just got in the way for me.

In addition (like many have mentioned), the narration was a mess. No individual narrator was bad, but there was no flow from character to character. It was like whoever happened to be in the studio that day did the narration. Very disjointed.

I'm not moving on to the next in this series.

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26 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

A lot to recommend

There was a great deal to like about this book. I liked the references to biology/evolution and physics/time-travel. Anytime one deals with time-travel there is always the inevitable "paradox" to deal with. While an important and necessary commentary, sometimes Card seems to overdo it with dialogues on the paradoxes.

In the production, I did not care for the use and switching of multiple narrators for the same characters. That makes no sense whatsoever and must have had something to do with the audio production itself. All of the narrators were very good but the lack of consistency was distracting and detracted from the work.

I have wanted to read Card before this book. I have been very tempted to begin the Ender series on many occasions but hesitated because so much seemed to revolve around children. Personally, I have raised 7 children and, while a wonderful experience, I am ready and have moved on to more adult dialogues. The childish conversations in the book and the way they were narrated sometimes seemed a bit contrived and unsatisfying. It was one of the main reasons I gave up on the Wheel of Time after about 4 of the books.

The plot and character development were excellent. The hero, while young, was quite multidimensional [no pun]. Not a great deal but probably sufficient time was spent describing the scenes. The politics were simply Machiavellian and not much variety or alternatives there.

The melding of past and present, medieval and futuristic is excellent. The confluence and reconciliation of these in the end is beautifully done. And, while Card gives the reader a quite satisfactory and satisfying ending, enough is left unfinished to warrant a Part 2. And I am very much looking forward to the continuation. After Part 2 I'll reconsider Ender.

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20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Okay if you're a big Orson Scott Card fan

Linguistics + Political Science + Theoretical Physics + Riverboats + Spaceships + Magical/Time traveling abilities = Pathfinder. If that sounds like a good mix to you, then jump right in. If you're like me, it was a few too many genres and not enough of any one. Just when I got interested in the characters' abilities, it became a political struggle. Just as I cared about the political intrigues, (SPOILER) they were crossing the wall. It was pretty obvious what was going to happen about a quarter into the book, and there wasn't much character development after that. The book just kind of coasts to an unfulfilling segway into what will be more books but I don't think I'll continue in the series.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Great Sci Fi Book

A great book with a VERY interesting plot. The narrators did a great job telling a complex story. For most of the book you don't understand what two completely different stories have to do with each other. One story is set in future, the other is about a Teenager's journey in a primitive time. I found the "journey" in finding out what two stories had to do with each other very interesting. "Pathfinder: Book I" sure set up an interesting series that I look forward to "reading".

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

good all around

First, the narrators are extremely pleasant ; they are the same as the series. Second, Orson Scott Card is as mind-blowing as always ; pooling Earth's ressources to build colonization ships, folds in space-time continuum, pushing Sci-fi's limits in order to reach the fantasy genre.
It's a mix between Homecoming Saga and Ender's Saga. 17hrs well spent.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

An Interesting Tale Involving Time Travel

I have mixed feelings about this book. Card has some interesting ideas involving time travel. I liked how he used two different time lines to help explain how events unfold. However, I thought some of the reasoning and conclusions the protagonist would immediately come up with were a bit too easy and convenient. There are plenty of holes to be found with time travel and this book doesn't shy from such paradox's that arise. It is actually a bit confusing if this is meant to be for children. The characters tend to talk a lot about using their abilities for time travel and the book spends a lot of wasted time on trying to explain their successes and failures in this venture. I felt there could have been more action when it was all said and done. I think this could have been a stand alone novel in it's own right and I didn't care for the ending at all. In addition, there were some obvious parts of this book that were a little frustrating, like Rigg's father dying. I mean, did anyone actually believe that occurred? As such, It was fairly easy to draw a lot of conclusions before the protagonist even came to them which shows poor writing. So I think in the end I am really trying to say it was all a little too convenient, predictable, and somewhat confusing.

The narration was dreadful. I'm not exaggerating here. At the start I didn't care for the narrator. I didn't like how his voice fit the characters and it all seemed a little too plain. Then you get used to the voice. Halfway through we get a different narrator who over animates his voices of characters to the point where it is distracting. And then soon after that we get a different narrator coming in and so on.

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12 people found this helpful