The Worthing Saga

By: Orson Scott Card

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 18 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

It was a miracle of science that permitted human beings to live, if not forever then for a long, long time. Some people, anyway. The rich, the powerful, they lived their lives at the rate of one year every 10. Some created two societies: that of people who lived out their normal span and died, and those who slept away the decades, skipping over the intervening years and events. It allowed great plans to be put into motion. It allowed interstellar empires to be built.

It came near to destroying humanity.

After a long, long time of decadence and stagnation, a few seed ships were sent out to save our species. They carried human embryos and supplies and teaching robots and one man. The Worthing Saga is the story of one of these men, Jason Worthing, and the world he found for the seed he carried.

Orson Scott Card is "a master of the art of storytelling" (Booklist), and The Worthing Saga is a story that only he could have written.

©1978 Orson Scott Card (P)2005 Blackstone Audiobooks

Not for the Lover's of Ender

First, I love this book. It has a few lulls where multiple story lines are tied up (IMO Nedded if not a little boring).

Second, DO NOT buy this book if you just finished breezing through the Ender or the Shadow books. Yes I know they are fantastinc but, that doesn't mean that this book is for you. Worthing is clasic Card. Like some of his early short stories where he tried to jam deep meaning and some of his religion into every work.

If you loved the kind of book that Ender and the Shadow books are, Worthing is not that type of fiction. This book is not about the sci-fi. It is about Jason Worthing and all of the lives his touched for good or ill.

Overall, very satisfying

Can't give it five stars, because it isn't Ender's Game, but I really enjoyed it. It does explore moral themes, but it's not as heavy-handed as some reviewers would have you believe. I like my sci-fi without a lot of heavy fantasy influence, and this book delivered for me.

I also don't like books written with a clear moral agenda. This dealt with moral themes, but didn't feel preachy. It's not hard to figure out where Card's sentiments lie, but I didn't mind. Bottom line, if you're a fan, it's worth a listen.

Oh, and the stories at the end are great if you were into the main Worthing Saga and kind of wished it wouldn't end. If you're done, you can skip them without feeling guilty - you're not missing anything serious, plot-wise.

A collection of novellas.

I've been a fan of Card for years, and I was surprised to find out that I'd not read this one. But I soon learned why. In book form you can see that it's a collection of novellas instead of a novel. I've never been a fan of novella, so that would explain why.

With that said, if novellas are your thing, you'll enjoy these. Typical Card, bringing up questions that that you make you think. At times a lot of fun, others holding on for the ride.

Masterpiece

I'm surprised I haven't heard of this OSC novel before because it's phenomenal. I suspect that many more recent works have drawn inspiration from it.

Scott Brick was an excellent choice for narrator and fits the story very well. However, after the main story concludes, there are several short stories narrated by the various narrators that do the Ender's Game series, and they range in skill from decent to absolutely terrible. I don't understand how some of these hacks keep getting paid to narrate.

Can't decide whether to recommend this or not!

I enjoyed Ender's Game and the subsequent novels, even though the characters were never very believable to me. This novel, however, is very strange. The characters were a bit creepy to me, with all the mothers hitting their kids; with kids dying and parents apparently not too broken up about it...I guess the characterizations, once again, were just not very believable to me. Oddly enough, it's been over a month since I finshed the book and I am still kind of resentful about it, for two reasons: one, the author had some great ideas but I really dislike the directions he took in the book, and two, I wish I hadn't met all the weird and one-dimensional characters.

OMG this is LONG!

Maybe this novel doesn't go on for eighty seven hours. But... whew... it's be cool if maybe an editor had suggested that Card, um, edit this manuscript down to what at least seems the length of the NYC telephone book. Zzzzzzzzzzz!

Interesting Story telling

Any additional comments?

I liked this book, I found it interesting and compelling. until you get to the stories of Capitol. some of those I didn't really care for but they make sense in the total scheme of things. Thumbs up from me.

Outstanding

Fantastic collection of stories, love the presentation and story building. Super entertaining and engaging. Recommended for all.

Early Work of a Master

Card was heavily influenced by the Foundation series in this work. I'm not making that up. He says so in the afterward. But he brings his own unique style and perspective to "universe building".

These stories require some patience. Don't expect alot of action and aliens. This isn't Ender's universe.

Card examines the influence of two technological events on the development of human society; the ability to "sleep" for decades at a time, and psychic ability to control the thoughts and memories of others. How do these changes influence the way people act and relate? What happens when whole classes of individuals can skip through time like stones across a pond? The stories are thought provoking and prove that card is a much more interesting writer than the recent "Ender and Bean" novels would indicate.

The production is excellent and the readers are first rate.

Can't be a 70's scifi!

This wasn't clear from the description but this audiobook has more than one story in it. I would say that it is a collection of short stories, except that the first story is about 10 hours long. The rest are about 45 minutes. So it's more like a novel with a bonus collection of short stories.

Scott Brick narrates the novel part and is very good, the other narrators aren't as good (especially following immediately after Brick), but are still easy to listen to.

This is the 4th audiobook of 70s scifi that I've listened to and if I didn't know better, I would never believe it was written in the 70s. The story comes ahead of the scifi, the characters feel real, and the author makes you care what happens. There's an underlaying sense of injustice running through the stories that the author makes us want to correct.

I wanted the stories to go faster, not to get through them, but because I wanted to know what happened. This audio is worth the price for sure!