Tor, Apr 2003, 14,95, 304 pp.
ISBN: 0765305607
Over a millennium ago, humans established a religious colony on Imakulata. The newcomers keep far away from the native Geblics, abuse the empathic Gauntish, and enslave the slow thinking Dwelfs. Since the beginning of the star ship landing, the Heptarchs have ruled humanity on this orb.
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However, concern surfaces over The Starship Captain's prophecy. The prediction is that the seventh seventh seventh daughter or the 343rd since the first Heptarch will be the mother of Kristos, either the savior or destroyer of the human race. Patience is the daughter of the rightful Heptarch, Lord Peace, slave to the pretender, King Oruc. Peace teaches Patience to live up to her name in order to avoid war. When Lord Peace dies, Patience knows her protection died with her father's death. Before the Oruc can end the prophecy by killing her, she flees. Her adventure begins, but will she fulfill the prophecy while on the run?
WYRMS is Orson Scott Card at his world building best as he creates a complex social system with several races that feel sociologically authentic. As he always does Mr. Card poses moral dilemmas that seem almost paradoxical as he nudges his readers to consider right vs. wrong, but offers no simple turpitude. There is plenty of action and the cast, especially the heroine, is very complex and brave so it is easy to see why this is an award-winning tale.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner
Humans colonized a planet and set up a kingdom. There are two other alien/mutant groups residing on the planet, one group has no will and since they don't care what they do, they're pretty much everybody's servants. The other race has all but died off and one wants to breed with the humans to keep the race alive. His mate of choice is a princess. Luckily for him he has mind control or something, otherwise he'd be hard pressed to get a beautiful young princess to even consider calling him on the phone, let alone accepting the role as the mother of his child. The princess, along with a motley crew of misfits including a fat chick/would-be assassin and a head in a jar, heads off in search of this alien/mutant, though she's not too keen on the idea of mating with it, she, like a cat in heat, just can't help herself. A thoroughly unfulfilling book, to say the least. While the majority of characters have moments where they are interesting and even likable, they are not strong enough to hold up the sex with alien/mutant creature plot and one had to wonder if Card originally had something better in mind and lost it somewhere, or if this was something he just threw together for some quick cash to sustain him while he was thinking up a story more meaningful and interesting. A terribel tragedy, unless your into that kind of thing.
The review of this Book prepared by sayruh
