A review by rpmiller
Earthborn by Orson Scott Card

3.0

This portion of the story was 500 years beyond previous episodes, and only one character remained alive. All other characters were new, except for the possibility that 2 non-human and possibly non-sentient, side personalities are considered characters. This episode started slowly, and there is an interesting twist on how names are modified in common use that adds to early confusion until you realize it is not that important to remember all the details in names, prefixes and suffixes. The context of the previous episodes is significant so this can not be considered a standalone novel. Also, what had been a loose religion-like social connection has now become a full fledged orthodox cannon. There are still some political considerations as one might expect in a hereditary monarchy, but religion dominates the events of the time. While there is some personal connection among individual characters, most of that revolves around beliefs that are not easily communicated to readers, at least not the emotional content of that belief. The character transformations are about religious beliefs, although those are not modern beliefs, probably more like pagan (or animalistic) beliefs. This climax story in the series is an improvement over some earlier episodes.