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 gradually revealed relationship between the two accounts. The special talents of the main characters on the far-away planet are reminiscent of the "knacks" in Card's Alvin Maker series. The reader joins with the characters of both narratives in trying to figure out the complexities of time travel and how the talents on Garden work. There are also the typical Cardian devices of using precocious children and of placing characters in extremely dangerous social and political situations. Both of these cards (so to speak) are played with skill and finesse in this book. I've heard that Card considers Pathfinder to be his best effort since Ender's Game, and although I particularly like the Ender's Shadow series, this book gives that series a run for its money. Highly recommended!