Earthfall
High above the planet Harmony, the Oversoul watches. Its task, programmed forty million years before, is to guard the human settlement on this planet-to protect this fragile remnant of Earth from all threats. To protect them, most of all, from themselves.
But now the great artificial intelligence is failing. On the planet, the Oversoul has lost control of the population. Forbidden technology has been rediscovered. War has broken out. The only repair lies light years distant on a lost and ruined Earth; the only way to get there is in the hands of trusted humans.
The Oversoul selected the family of Wetchik to return to Earth. Now grown to a tribe in the years of their journey to the planet Harmony's hidden starport, they are ready at last to take a ship to the stars. But from the beginning there has been bitter dispute between Nafai and Elemak, Wetchik's youngest son and his oldest. That dispute has grown to murderous hatred in Elemak's heart.
On board the starship Basilica, named for their lost city, the children of the tribe will become pawns in the struggle. Each of the two factions is making secret plans to be awakened early from the cold-sleep capsules in which they will pass the long decades of the journey. Each side hopes to gain years of influence on the minds of the children, winning their loyalty in the struggle for control of reclaimed Earth.
But the Oversoul is truly in control of this journey. It has downloaded a complete copy of itself to the ship's control computers. And only Nafai, who wears the Cloak of the Starmaster by the Oversoul's command, really understands what this will mean to all their plans for the future.
ORSON SCOTT CARD is the nationally bestselling, Hugo and Nebula Award winning author of Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide. The previous books in the Homecoming series are The Memory of Earth, The Call of Earth, and The Ships of Earth.
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card (born 1951) is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game (1985) and its sequel Speaker for the Dead (1986) both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the only author to win both science fiction's top U.S. prizes in consecutive years. He is also known as an advocate for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which he has been a lifelong practicing member, and as a political commentator on many issues, including opposition to homosexual behavior and the legalization of same-sex marriage.
Homecoming Saga
In this science fiction epic from Orson Scott Card, it is 40 million years in the future, and humanity long ago abandoned Earth, rendered uninhabitable by their destructive wars. Now, mankind survives on the planet of Harmony, where the Oversoul - an artificial intelligence - protects them from their own worst impulses. There are no wars, no dangerous technologies or weapons of mass destruction.
But after so many millennia, the Oversoul is beginning to fail. Now, a group of humans must return to Earth and seek advice from the entity on which the Oversoul is modeled - the mysterious Keeper of the Earth.
Homecoming Saga consists of five books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.