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Jan 21, 2011

Morgan rated it:

Pathfinder is centered on Rigg, a thirteen year old boy who lives an isolated life hunting and poaching with his enigmatic father. Rigg has a strange ability; he can see paths, tracks in time that are remnants of every living thing ever to have lived. The only person whose path he cannot see is his father's, who dies one day in an accident. His father's last wish is for Rigg to find the sister he never knew he had. This leads Rigg to undergo a fascinating journey, with every step of the way le More...

16 comments like (12 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2011

Eva rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 04, 2011

Jenelle rated it:

Hadn't even heard of it till I saw it at Costco and luckily this spontaneous purchase paid off. It was the perfect rebound book after the ultra disappointing end to the hunger games series. Pathfinder starts off feeling very similar, in fact, with a kind of futuristic/post-apocalyptic vibe. It wasn't as nail-biting or gruesome as hunger games, but the political intrigue is there and quite a bit of mystery--very much like Ender's Game. I read it just as fast those, too-- little more than a day. R More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2011

Virginia rated it:

Sometimes, the cleverness and incredible adeptness and genius of the main character, Rigg, surpasses my ability to suspend disbelief. Not the spaceships and spacetime-jumping folds creating duplicate persons. Not the ability to become invisible or see the paths of all beings or slowing down time. Not even a ridiculous confluence of events. However, if I were to be trained since birth on game theory, different languages, etc. I could be half as able. Ok, no joke. One third. I do so wish that I co More...

5 comments like (12 people liked it)

Feb 14, 2012

Rosalia rated it:

Rigg lives in a small country town with his father trapping animals to survive. They spend hours in the woods with his father teaching him languages, diplomacy, how to use his powers to track paths and survival, until his father dies. Then Rigg tries to save a young boy from going over a waterfall and has to flee town in a hurry. He and Umbo, brother of the dead child start on a journey with instructions left by his father to the city where Rigg will get ahold of his wealth. As they journey More...

1 comment like

Feb 13, 2012

Barb rated it:

I liked this book so much I walked to the car with my nose pressed between the pages, risked motion sickness reading it on the ride to Grandma Edith’s place, and resented any interruptions that forced me to put it down. Of course, I’m an Orson Scott Card fan so it isn’t surprising. He’s a terrific writer.

Rigg is being raised by a man known only as Father. He has the unusual ability to see animals and peoples paths in the past as well as those alive. The two are fur trappers and Father More...

0 comments like

Feb 01, 2012

Bridgette rated it:

I'm starting to develop a love-hate relationship with Orson Scott Card. I think his ideas are brilliant. I love the concepts and themes that he explores, even when I disagree with his conclusions. Sometimes, though, his books get bogged down in lectures rather than retaining the light touch that encourage people to think without beating them over the head. "Pathfinder" launches a new series. It intertwines two stories from vastly different times while playing with the paradoxes of time More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 05, 2012

Христо rated it:

“Следотърсачът” на Орсън Скот Кард е добро начало на фантастична сага
http://www.knigolandia.info/2011/12/blog...

Първата ми среща с Орсън Скот Кард определено се оказа забавна и ще бъде продължена в бъдеще, неминуемо и със сагата за Ендър. За нея досега не се бях сещал, но май трябва да се прочете, ако е наистина сред най-великите фантастики евър, както прочетох.

“Следотърсачът” е първа част от сага, която искрено се надявам да не надмине трилогия поради непоноси More...

0 comments like

Dec 22, 2011

Phoebe rated it:

I spent this whole book saying 'this is so interesting, this is so interesting', then running into my brother's room, waving the book around and saying 'this is so interesting'. My mind is blown. The fact that I recently did relativity in physics didn't stop my mind being blown. If you like sci-fi, cool powers, interesting characters, and two amazing stories in one book that don't come together unless you connect them yourself (Thank-you Mr Card for not making me feel stupider by obvioiusly tell More...

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Nov 09, 2011

Dianna rated it:

This is a great page turner. It might just be up there with Ender's Game, but there are a few flaws for me. Orson Scott Card didn't give enough attention to the character of Param, Rigg's sister. She isn't introduced until the book is 3/4 of the way done, so maybe he is planning to enlighten us further on this possibly interesting character later in the series, but what he gives isn't enough. The many explanations and character thinkings on the time travel are amazing and mind boggling, to s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 18, 2011

Radiance79 rated it:

Let me start by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It really worked my brain with the whole time travel aspect of the story. I love how the author went into depth to explain time travel; especially with how it applied to each gifted character and how it affected the use of their powers. One character for example has the power to become invisible. He/she does this by either skipping every other second or by cutting every second in half, I can’t remember which right now. But the idea is s More...

0 comments like

Aug 13, 2011

Nick rated it:

Orson Scott Card had me at Ender's Game, an early one, if not his first, and brilliant, plausible sci fi it was. I'm a huge fan. Pathfinder has masterful touches, but works a little too hard to get us confused with time travel. We get it, if you go back in time, and do something different than your past self did, you change the future, and then what happens to your future self? That's the essential time travel paradox that Card explores here on a very strange planet with 19 subdivided zones More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 02, 2011

Jon rated it:

In playing with the tacitly accepted sci-fi genre rules of space and time travel, Card takes a risk. It creates some interesting situations and new ideas, but ultimately, it ends up feeling like he makes it up as he goes along. Of course, this may help the story by creating more of a feeling that the main characters don't know what they are doing and are just stumbling in the darkness trying to find their way with their interesting abilites. So in that way it works. However, the premise that the More...

2 comments like

Jul 18, 2011

Heather rated it:

I really enjoyed the theoretical ideas about time and space thrown around in debate by characters in this novel, but, as usual, I did feel they tended to draw out dialogue too long and require so much focus on the idea that you lost sense of place in the story and the dynamics of the characters involved. Card often does this, but to greater or lesser degrees, depending on the complexity of the idea and how long the characters have to argue about it for the readers to get the gist. I just felt th More...

0 comments like

Jun 25, 2011

Splen rated it:

Thirteen-year-old Rigg has a secret ability to see the paths of others' pasts, but revelations after his father's death set him on a dangerous quest that brings new threats from those who would either control his destiny or kill him.

O.S.C. has never faulted with this style:
very young boys whose superpower is intellectual.

Subjects:
Identity (Philosophical concept) -- Juvenile fiction.
Psychic ability -- Juvenile fiction.
Time travel -- Juvenile fiction.
More...

0 comments like

Jun 17, 2011

Gail rated it:

I have enjoyed a few books by Orson Scott Card. Some of them made me shiver as if I was reading something wrong and others were exciting. This book was good. I enjoyed the double story line and the events of the story. I have always had a hard time understanding time travel and the ramifications of how the events might effect future events. In any book that I have read with time jumping events, it has always been a little hard to grasp and this book is no different. In this book, we have tw More...

0 comments like

May 26, 2011

AnEyeSpy rated it:

**** "Pathfinder" can see where animals, including people, have gone over planet Garden, for 1191 years. The isolated trapper is 13, voice cracking, going on precocious 19 from his intensive home-schooling, and the last words of his "Father" are to find his sister in the capital city, where a royal conspiracy awaits. Typical Orson Scott Card, the assiduous teacher has kept secrets, and taught others with time altering powers. A parallel story starts on a colony spaceship whos More...

0 comments like

May 10, 2011

Lauren rated it:

Review
Pathfinder
Orson Scott Card
Published: 11/23/10
Orson Scott Card has a ton of books, and I have only read Ender’s Game (albeit a few times!). His other books have been on my to-read list, and I am still hoping to get to them, but when I saw Pathfinder, I knew I had to grab it. The cover alone is appealing with the sword and the wisps of smoke or air. At 657 pages it’s a beast of a book— just how I like them.
The premise is that the main character Rigg can see paths le More...

0 comments like

May 08, 2011

Alex rated it:

When I first read about Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card, I didn’t look carefully at the book details on Amazon. I took what my Kindle was telling me at face value, meaning I thought the book was written by Card and by Sammy Yuen Jr.

In reading the sample, I could totally see a second hand in the novel. Yes, the book was typically Card with a highly analytical super-intelligent teenaged boy with dubious father figures around him, but it was more hard-science than I normally see from Card More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 27, 2011

Jennie rated it:

Card has done it again! Pathfinder is everything you could ask for in a fantasy epic—compelling characters, expansive world-building and enough bizarre flair for even the most hardcore nerd. Two stories are intertwined in this satisfying read: that of Rigg, a newly orphaned quick-witted boy with an epic quest and a dangerous gift; and that of Ram, captain of a starship who finds himself amongst the most baffling paradoxes in the universe. Somehow, Card manages to mesh these two plots into a fasc More...

0 comments like

Apr 20, 2011

Hiroshi rated it:

I had all but given up on reading Card. He had long ago flaked out on the amazing Alvin Maker books started with Seventh Sun; he was running hot and cold with short stories; his more transparently evangelical tales ceased to amuse; and well, I love his first book, Ender's Game, as well as the books that came after in that universe; and I love his early short stories. But here I am again, picking up Pathfinder, NOT KNOWING IT'S THE FIRST IN A SERIES...and given his track record with Seventh Son, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 19, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

Seen LOST? Like LOST? You’ll like Pathfinder. Card begins with two mismatched narratives - Ram a starship pilot in charge of the future of the human race and Rigg a lowly peasant boy who has a gift for hunting. Rigg’s father dies and then things start getting confusing: Rigg crosses the river and time seems to slow down....Rigg’s narrative breaks only where Ram is conversing with robots called expendables about how to preserve human life. This is no Matlock or Perry Mason episode where you prett More...

0 comments like

Mar 17, 2011

Thomas rated it:

Short review: A Good book. There's a fair amount of character development, though less in the main character than in some of the other major characters. Once again Card raises a number of ethical issues and fairly supports both sides of the issues, though this time the view of the major characters, and thus presumably the author, is fairly clear on many of them. The science-fiction world setting involves supernatural abilities sometimes classified as ESP and bordering on magic, making the world More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 07, 2011

Chad rated it:

I saw this book and I knew I had to have it. I'm a huge fan of Orson Scott Card and have read almost everything he's ever published, including essays and short stories. Boy am I glad I picked this up.

The story follows Rigg, a young by with a remarkable ability to see the paths that people throughout history have taken. Raised and trained by his father in the deep wilderness to think and act like no ordinary child his path takes him out into a world he never could have imagined, but w More...

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Feb 27, 2011

Christopher rated it:

I couldn't put this down for the last few days, a fact that has considerably inhibited my school work and screwed up my sleep schedule. If you love time-travel stories as much as I do, then you will love the mind-bending maze of paradox Card has constructed here. Plenty of wry and witty dialogue keeps it from ever getting tedious. I also enjoyed the blend of fantasy and science fiction, which reminded me somewhat of Card's earlier Treason and Homecoming novels.

As usual in Card's novels More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 06, 2011

Brandy rated it:

I picked this book up by chance at the bookstore about a month ago. I just now got around to reading it and I am on the fence as to weather I should have read it sooner or waited longer to read it.

Truth be told I really loved this book. It made me really realize how much I enjoy science fiction. Science fiction is such a broad genre and I don't always love all styles of it, but I have to give it to Orson Scott Card that he can really get me to like it. The only bad part of this boo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 05, 2011

Reading rated it:

Review by Andrea @ Reading Lark

This review is going to be short and sweet because this book will be truly ruined if I give away too much. I want to fully admit that Science Fiction isn't really my genre, but I wanted to step outside of my comfort zone a bit. I also had heard great things about Orson Scott Card's writing. Furthermore, I always have great books to recommend for female readers, but few for males. I thought this book would help me accomplish several goals at once.
More...

2 comments like

Feb 05, 2011

Tiffany rated it:

If you liked Ender's Game then you will most definitely enjoy this one. It has very similar feeling, a young boy with extraordinary talents, and he is put to the test unknowing of what the test is.

Also, I find that Card's writing is a little on the sci-fi explanation side then I would personally prefer but I think that his writing is more directed at a YA male audience which of course I am not. I read the parts that delve into the time continuum thing and I had to not try too har More...

0 comments like

Feb 02, 2011

James M. rated it:

An excellent and challenging read fully worthy of comparison with Ender's Game, although it also reminds me of The Worthing Saga, another of my favorites from Orson Scott Card. Each chapter begins with an almost purely science-fiction narrative of a colony ship bound for a distant planet and then presents the main narrative, a largely fantasy story of life on that planet, eventually revealed to be called Garden. Part of the whodunit mystery (and a "whendunit" as well) is the only gra More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 31, 2011

Rae rated it:

I've found that when it comes to Orson Scott Card's writing and I, it's a bit of a love/hate relationship. I find myself, over and over, coming back to his books because of the crazy ideas that they embody, but then at some point or another just want him to skip the pages of pondering a character does before acting on something. Really Ram, did you really need to spend so long debating in a circular manner with the expendables? In the case of Pathfinder, the story was very enjoyable, and I lov More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

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