Ruins: Pathfinder, Book 2

I’ve never read a book quite like this. The time travel was both fascinating and tedious. Orson Scott Card is a master at writing that is for sure.

Ruins is the 2nd volume in a trilogy, and it takes the story in some bizarre, unexpected directions. It is better than its predecessor Pathfinder. The biggest flaw of the first book—Rigg being so smart and powerful that you never felt like he was in any real danger—is remedied. Rigg is finally faced with challenges he does not know the answer to. The first volume was essentially just Rigg’s personal journey to find his sister and perhaps regain a throne that is his birthright. In Ruins, the stakes are raised. The two timelines of Earth and planet Garden have merged, and Garden must now prepare for a dangerous First Encounter with the species that spawned them.The expendables—the android protectors of the human race--turn out to be flawed and self-serving. Rigg must explore the 19 cultures of his planet to prepare and unite them. The problem is that none of the cultures are truthful, everyone is lying and manipulating for different reasons. Rigg has to use his time-travel abilities to create causality loops to figure out how to avoid the destruction of the world which has already happened 10 previous times!Some of the evolved versions of humanity, the results of 11,000 years of genetic drift and manipulation, are inventive almost to the point of absurdity. There is a culture where lab rats spliced with human genes evolve to surpass their human creators in intelligence. There is another where humans live in symbiotic harmony with a fish-like parasite.Rigg and Umbo both master their time-traveling skills, meaning they can travel freely without the constraints so meticulously established in Pathfinder. Neither an anchor in the present nor a receiving party in the past are required anymore. This feels like a little bit of a cheat, as if the author just got tired of following his own rules, but it’s also an important plot point that eventually leads to a rift among the main characters.Rigg, his sister Param, and their friend Umbo spend much of this book feuding like petty children, which actually makes them more believable than the child geniuses they appeared to be earlier. However, the bickering and in-fighting ran long and became tedious.Some other annoying discrepancies in the “rules” of time travel just feel like sloppy editing: • In chapter 3 Rigg travels back and meets Vadesh the android 10,000 years ago, which results in Rigg “gaining” new memories from their original introduction. However, it had already been established in Pathfinder (in the origin of the Wandering Saint and Noodle-eater legends) that the person who initiates a causal change in time retains memories from the original timeline while everyone else, even others in the time-traveling party, gain new memories from the changed/resultant sequence of events. • Umbo claims he can’t calibrate a trip back in time to exactly nineteen days, but in Pathfinder he was able to calibrate trips back by a couple of days (to appear to Loaf and Leaky at dinner) and two weeks (to steal the jewels they buried.) • Rigg points out that Umbo can always return to the exact time from which he originally departed. However, in Pathfinder, it had earlier been established that Umbo cannot always control his “return trip” because, unlike Rigg, he does not anchor onto someone in the present.These are not substantial problems in that they do not disrupt the story, but continuity flaws like this contribute to an overall feeling that the author is just “making it up” as he goes along.Despite the flaws, this is still a trippy, mind-bending story full of mysteries, paradoxes, time loops, and recursive story lines. While several tropes have been done before by other others, this never feels like a retread. It feels new and fresh and I have no idea how it is going to end. I will definitely read the concluding volume.

In this second installment of Card's Pathfinder series, we join Rigg and the gang on the other side of the wallfold of Ram, meeting Vadesh. As with the first book, I couldn't put this one down either! The small, traveling group quickly realizes that Vadesh, who looks just like the man who raised and taught Rigg all he knew, is actually an Expendable, a robot from the beginning of humankind's arrival on Garden. There is one Expendable in each wallfold, helping the humans there and guiding them. Rigg quickly realizes that this means not only that his father wasn't only inhuman, an expendable as well, but also that he faked his own death and fills Rigg with more emotions than he can possibly understand.Param must undergo being not only outside of her home, the city itself on top of that, but now also a new wallfold which is like a whole new world to them all. After 11,000 years of seperation, each wallfold had evolutionized in it's own way, apart from other wallfold's involvement. It is the ultimate social experiment, and my favorite part of the particular book. Reading each select wallfold's developments.Loaf has his own issues to deal with, as a warrior, hero, and lost husband to Leaky. As always, he is looking out for the group and offering unwavering, blunt sarcasm, which adds to his charm. He picks up many native friends in this book, but that's the only spoiler I'll give on Loaf, his character truly came a long way this go around.Umbo also must grow as he struggles with resentment, jealousy and his inner, alpha male. He bounces back and forth between insecurity and under-appreciation quite a bit. Since three main characters are adolescents, there are a lot of hormones at play here.Olivenko,who joined so late in the journey last book, really is given the time his character deserves in Ruins for everyone else to get to know him and develop. He proves his worth and finally wins Loaf over.There are many new enemies to deal with in Ruins, none just as simple as the humans from the first book, when their powers were new and that was still a challenge. Yes, there are still humans to face, but far more challenging, along with beast from Garden and Earth, perhaps a mix of the two... But which mix could I be referring to?There is plenty more time travel, splicing and pathfinding, all much more honed. Also plenty more knowledge to learn when we, the reader, thought we already had all the pieces. You won't be able to put it down, either!Highly recommended, five stars!Greatly anticipating the next in the series!

Interesting but not as good as the first book in the series

Interesting read into space / time paradoxes and causalities. Makes one look at different cultures and appreciate the differences. Goodread.

great sci fi story, brilliant concepts of time and gripping narrative. Can't wait for the next book and hate it when they aren't published in one go.

I've read e-books on Sony Pocket Book for a few years, usually free of charge. This was transferred from Kindle on my pc onto my reader and contains more errors than I should have expected. The loss of a star reflects my personal disappointment; however, reading the original Kindle on the pc is perfect.

Not quite where I was expecting it to go, but well written as usual and well worth reading. Bring on the next book!

Gift.