Audiobook Reviews from Audiobook-Heaven
Title: The Memory of Earth
Series: Homecoming, book 1
Author: Orson Scott Card
Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki
Copyright: 2008, Blackstone Audio
Duration: 10 hours, 33 minutes
Genres: science fiction
Filed in: Audiobook Reviews
Review copy provided by Blackstone Audio.
PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: High above the planet Harmony, the Oversoul watches. Its task, programmed so many millennia ago, is to guard the human settlement on this planet, to protect this fragile remnant of Earth from all threats...to protect them, most of all, from themselves.
The Oversoul has done its job well. There is no war on Harmony. There are no weapons of mass destruction. There is no technology that could lead to weapons of war. By control of the data banks, and subtle interference in the very thoughts of the people, the artificial intelligence has fulfilled its mission.
But now there is a problem. In orbit, the Oversoul realizes that it has lost access to some of its memory banks, and some of its power systems are failing. And on the planet, men are beginning to think about power, wealth, and conquest.
©1992 Orson Scott Card; (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: They finally did it. Mankind finally released their weapons of mass destruction. As a result, less than one percent of the Earth’s population survived, and the planet they once thrived on was left virtually uninhabitable. But their technology survived. What humans were left, escaped the planet in great ships, looking for a fresh start and vowing to return once the devastated planet had healed itself.
They found a new planet and named it Harmony. They had already decided that they would never let their children destroy themselves, as their fathers had done, and went to work right away. What they created was the Oversoul, an artificial intelligence containing all of the knowledge of Earth, programmed to guide their descendants down peaceful paths and discourage tendencies toward war. The Oversoul was supported by a system of hundreds of satellites providing worldwide coverage. Furthermore, they changed their own gene structure, making them and their descendants more susceptible to the promptings of the Oversoul. Having accomplished all that, they hid their advanced technology away and started mankind over again.
The Oversoul was programmed to watch over the people of Harmony for 20 million years. Surely by that time, man would have put aside their aggressiveness and would be ready to return to Earth, which in turn should have completed its own healing. But in fact, more than 30 million years passed. The Oversoul had done it’s job well, but the satellites were failing, one by one, and the Oversoul’s power was growing weaker. And wouldn’t you know it, the humans were going right back to their old ways.
The Oversoul is aware that it is weakening, however, and that it must have help. And so it begins scouring its databanks, looking for just the right person. What it finds, is fourteen-year-old Nafai. Nafai has his work cut out for him. He will have to convince his family to leave their comfortable home, travel for weeks across the desert to where the great ships still lie waiting, and make the long trip back to Earth so the Oversoul can re-establish its link with its parent system. Would you follow a fourteen-year-old on a crazy scheme like that?
Orson Scott Card’s Homecoming series has been one of my favorite science fiction stories since I first read it almost 20 years ago, and I was very pleased to find the audio version in Blackstone’s catalog. I love the way Card blends technologies from different eras of human existence. On Harmony, they have some advanced technology, but nothing that could lead to large-scale war. They have, for instance, computers, and the Oversoul links the computers of each city together in something like an internet, but they haven’t even invented the wheel. Wheels would allow large armies to travel greater distances. There are small weapons like knives or pulse guns that negate the advantage large people would have over smaller ones, but no bombs or explosives. Whenever someone starts thinking about inventing something that is forbidden, the Oversoul gently turns their thoughts in a different direction.
The Memory of Earth is narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, who has narrated tons of sci-fi books, including many of Card’s audiobooks. Rudnicki is one of the better narrators around and always does a good job.
CHECK OUT THESE OTHER AUDIOBOOK REVIEWS:
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (Audiobook Review)
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear (Audiobook Review)
World Made By Hand by James Howard Kunstler (audiobook Review)
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If you like this audiobook review, you can purchase the audiobook here:
Get “The Memory of Earth”, book 1 in the Homecoming series by Orson Scott Card (Unabridged Audiobook) from Blackstone Audio.
This audiobook review is based on the unabridged audiobook.
Audiobook review by Steven Brandt
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