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.
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Orson Scott Card
Before Ender’s Game became required reading in classrooms and a touchstone for science fiction fans worldwide, it was just a short story—one that Orson Scott Card wrote while trying to understand how humanity might survive its own genius. That idea, born of curiosity and a deep interest in moral complexity, would eventually grow into a sprawling series exploring war, empathy, leadership, and the loneliness of brilliance.
Born in Richland, Washington in 1951 and raised mostly in Utah and California, Card grew up in a family where storytelling was a living thing—spoken, passed down, constantly evolving. Though he began his career writing plays and studying literature, he found his true voice in speculative fiction. And when he wrote Ender’s Game—and later Speaker for the Dead—he did something science fiction rarely dared at the time: he treated the genre as a tool for exploring the human soul.
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.
Homecoming Saga consists of five books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
