It’s true. And I know I will alienate blog readers by admitting it, but I feel that I would be doing a disservice to you if I did not tell you about this book/series. Never mind that the target audience for this book is probably juvenile males. I obviously have a lot in common with that demographic.
Although this book is pretty much a coming-of-age story for young Rigg, the story is really about time travel. And not cheesy time travel like in Back to the Future–I would equate this type of fantasy with something more along the lines of Harry Potter, except smarter in some ways (as in, requiring more thought).
You have to be really paying attention in this book, because as the reader, you’re following along as Rigg discovers how to use his time traveling gifts with his friend Umbo and later his sister–there are a lot of rules to time travel that I’d never have thought of but that these characters need to think through. Oh, and did I mention that this takes place in another world that began 11,191 years ago? And that they’re trapped in 1/19th of their world with each section or “wallfold” allowed to evolve separately for the last 11 millenniums?
Shoot, there goes your interest.
What if I compared it to The Hunger Games?
Ha! See, I knew that would work. It’s not really exactly comparable to Hunger Games, but I would say that the genres are sort of similar.
Ken and I also spent wedding money on the second book in this series, Ruins. More awesomeness. Another cliffhanger.
For better or for worse, now I’m re-reading Card’s most famous book, Ender’s Game, another fantasy/sci-fi novel directed toward juvenile males. This cover makes me seem like even more of a hopeless geek than you previously thought, I’m sure.
Sigh. In my defense, they’re both best-sellers, so I’m not the only one that appreciates the nuances of time travel.
For now, I think I’ll just embrace the nerdiness. But if I don’t surface within like a year and start reading normal books, could someone come and rescue me, please?
Thanks.
Planting Sequoias 
November 13, 2012 at 8:06 pm
Weird, I was just thinking about Pathfinder today, wondering if the second book in the series had come out. I was sucked into Orson Scott Card by Ender’s Game, which is a great book. Have you read Pastwatch? It has the best time-travel concept I’ve encountered. And now I’ve put myself in the ubernerd category.
November 14, 2012 at 8:17 am
Haha! Welcome to ubernerd-ness. I just finished reading Ender’s Game again this weekend! And I’ll just go ahead and admit that I’ve read a bunch of that whole series in the past year…Pathfinder was just released Nov. 1 and we bought it basically that day. Definitely going to check out Pastwatch!
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