Ruins

The second book in Orson Scott Card's Pathfinder series is entitled Ruins. This story picks up just after the first novel in the series, Pathfinder, ends. There we met a young teenage boy named Rigg who grew up on an Earth colony planet called Garden as a simple fur trapper with a man he thought was his father. However, Rigg's father gave his son a very broad education in science, history, language, and politics. When Rigg's father died, he left his son a bag of jewels that brought his old existence to an end the moment that he tried to sell one. Rigg found out that he was actually the prince of a deposed monarchy. Rigg, his traveling companion Umbo, and his sister Param, make a daring escape from their colony just a hair's breadth ahead of their mother's scheme to kill them and to reclaim her position as queen. Rigg, Umbo, and Param each also have a very special ability to manipulate time. As they work with each other, they slowly begin to understand and to control their nascent abilities as time travelers.

Pathfinder ended with Rigg and his small band of compatriots having come to understand that their planet was intended as Earth's first colony. However, due to an anomaly created during the jump to light speed, 19 copies of the spaceship were created that ended up arriving some 11,000 years before they even left Earth! Furthermore, they learn that Garden is divided into 19 separate colonies whose inhabitants have been kept fully isolated from the knowledge that the other colonies even exist. Those in control are actually advanced machines that arrived on the original ships. Rigg, Umbo, and Param learn that they were born with very special genetic manipulations to enhance their natural abilities. From the beginning their destiny is to save the planet of Garden from apparent destruction by warships of Earth. What nobody seems to understand is why. Using their time jumping abilities, Rigg, Umbo, and Param, try to avert the end of their world while trying to stay alive long enough to deal with all of the layers of intrigue and lies told to them by the colonists and the machines. A fun read that will keep you turning the pages. Now I await the next book in the series set for release this fall, Visitors.