Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus » (First Edition)

With a raft of science fiction awards and a dedicated following, Orson Scott Card writes imaginative and compelling novels that also explore questions about morality and religion. His Ender series is the most popular; but he also offers a fresh take on the Bible in his Women of Genesis books and has authored other history-based fantasy series.

In one of the most powerful and thought-provoking novels of his remarkable career, Orson Scott Card interweaves a compelling portrait of Christopher Columbus with the story of a future scientist who believes she can alter human history from a tragedy of bloodshed and brutality to a world filled with hope and healing.

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Given the political squabbles over America's traditional "discoverer," the subtitle of this novel might be enough to scare off many readers. Except, of course, that it is written by Orson Scott Card, one of the finest current writers of science fiction who possesses a rare feeling for both history and religion, as he has displayed in his saga of Alvin Maker, recently resumed in "Alvin Journeyman". The plot of his new book is fairly straightforward: three time travelers from a ruined and doomed future Earth journey to the time of Columbus' landing, hoping to alter events so that the contact between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres will be less disastrous for the American Indians, indeed, for the whole world. At the heart of the book, however, is a marvelous, enormously powerful portrait of Columbus himself. Another superior addition to a superior body of work.