Earthfall

May 1, 1995
The fourth and penultimate book in Card's Homecoming Saga carries the travelers from the planet Harmony back to Earth at last--the first humans to set foot there in 40 million years. The journey through space intensifies the strife between Nafai, leader of the expedition chosen by the Oversoul (Harmony's master computer), and his brother Elemak, which erupts again into violence midway through the voyage. Nafai's Oversoul-given powers and the obvious futility of a rebellion in deep space force a renewed truce, but hostilities continue to simmer as the travelers reach Earth. As the humans establish a colony, they must make peace with two sentient species, evolved in humankind's absence, which live in a constant state of enmity. This action-packed, plot-rich installment features Card's typical virtues--well-drawn characters and a story driven by complex moral issues. As the narrative pace accelerates, however, the later episodes fragment and characters fade into the background.

November 15, 1994
Card's fourth book in his best-selling "Homecoming" series continues the interstellar feud between brothers Nafai and Elemak.

February 15, 1995
The fourth volume of Homecoming, Card's grand saga of the human race's far-future return to Earth, takes the characters on a century-long starship voyage back to the old planet. They find it inhabited by two sapient races, one evolved from rats, the other from bats. The two are constantly hostile to each other but also symbiotically linked by their reproductive process. Meanwhile, the long-standing rivalry between the statesmanlike Nafai and the dictatorial Elemak nearly wrecks the voyage, then leads to open violence on Earth, with consequences for relations with the other two sapient Earth races. In this book more strongly than ever, it seems that a lesser writer than Card could have neither conceived nor effectively executed this saga. His literary gifts and philosophical turn of mind continue to carry it on at a very high level, mandating that "Earthfall" go on the shelf with the rest of the saga. ((Reviewed Feb 15, 1995))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1995, American Library Association.)