The Memory of Earth

Fantastically written. Interesting characters. Excellent dialogue. Card at his best.

3.5 stars. This is an interesting setting, especially from a social and gender perspective, as well as being set in the far future, but it's essentially an Ottoman/medieval desert setting. Thirty million years in the future, descendants of Slavic refugees from Earth live in a city called Basilica on the planet Harmony. Women run the place, at least from a spiritual perspective, and have control of marriages and the raising of children. There's an interesting set of rituals around sex and marriage. The main character Nafai spends an awful lot of time thinking about getting a girlfriend, in a typical example of Card's excellent characterization. The planet is watched over by a computer mind called The Oversoul, which the main character and his brother discover is responsible for keeping Harmony's citizens from developing weapons of war (i.e. they have weapons for personal defense). The Oversoul is breaking down, however, losing its ability to prevent war.

So it's a cool setup, and it's as well written as any other OSC book. The reason it's not 4 stars is that as interesting as the setting is, it's not quite interesting enough or distinctive enough to get me to read the next book (there are 5). Despite the hugeness of the story idea, it just doesn't feel like a big deal the way Hyperion or other books from this era do. Not bad, just not that compelling.