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0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks

High above Earth orbits the starship Basilica. On board the huge vessel are a sleeping woman and an artificial intelligence, the Oversoul of Harmony. Of those who made the journey from the planet Harmony, Shedemai alone has survived the hundreds of years since the Children of Wetchik returned to Earth.

She now wears the Cloak of the Starmaster, given to her by Nafai when he chose to live out his life on Earth. The Oversoul sometimes wakes her from her hibernation chamber to watch over her descendants on the planet below. The population has grown rapidly—there are cities and nations now, whole peoples descended from those who followed Nafai or Elemak. Shedemei watches with sorrow as the war between those two brothers lives on in the enmity of their descendants.

Shedemei and the Oversoul have recorded much of the history of Earth since they came, but in all the long years of watching and searching, the Oversoul has not found the thing it sought. It has not found the Keeper of the Earth, the central intelligence that alone can repair the Oversoul's damaged programming and allow it to return to Harmony.

But on the planet below, among the people there, Shedemei and the Oversoul can see the influence of the Keeper. And now, in Shedemei's dreams, the Keeper speaks to her again, sending powerful warnings. She is needed on the surface, with her knowledge and the power of the Starmaster's Cloak. And so at last she determines to go. The last living child of Harmony will return to Earth and search for the Keeper as she once searched for the Oversoul—by being its servant until at last they come face to face.

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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 1, 1995
      This concluding volume of the Homecoming series (Earthfall, et al.) doesn't live up to the earlier books, which were notable for their subtlety in developing essentially religious themes through focused plotting and sensitive characterization. Here, the plot relies on familiar Judeo-Christian archetypes, tailored to examine discrimination, theocracy and the relationship to God-or, in this case, the powerful mystery of the Keeper. Three intelligent species now inhabit Earth: the sky people, who live in treetops; the earth people, who live in the soil and in tree trunks; and the middle people, humans descended from colonists who have returned to Earth after an absence of 40-million years. In addition to the stilted speech of some of the characters, the novel is slowed by Card's ``naming conventions,'' which increase the mystical and cultural importance of names but also force readers to refer frequently to the separate chapter on the author's system of compounded names, titles and endearments in order to determine which characters are speaking or acting. The conclusion of the story, however, in which the firstborn son of a former priest and leader sees the evil he has caused and selects his future, is vintage Card and a joy to read. This mildly disappointing wrap-up to a rich series about humanity's journey from Earth to the stars and back might be satisfying enough to Card fans, but it's not the book through which to meet Card for the first time. Author tour.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The plot of the fifth and final volume of Card's Homecoming series may be a disappointment to fans who have followed Harmony and the Oversoul since the beginning, but this reading is far from a letdown. Stefan Rudnicki is a master narrator, and nothing--not complicated names, not departures from the feel of the original four books--diminishes that talent a whit. While the first four books follow each other in close chronological order, EARTHBORN leaps five centuries into the future to follow Shedemei's, the last of the Children of Wetchik, and the Oversoul's unending search for the Keeper of Earth. Rudnicki's clear, resonant voice bestows an almost-reverent quality to the text, a characteristic that works well with the book's spiritual underpinnings. M.L.K. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

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  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Text Difficulty:9-12

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