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Originally Posted by I, Brian I mentioned in another thread about the Ender Wiggins series being continually revisited - but I'm curious - what about OSC's other works?
How about the "Tales of Alvin Maker" series? The "Homecoming" series? How about some of his standalone novels? |
I haven't read either of those series, so I can't really say anything about them.
OSC has written some good stand-alone novels. In fact, there are two I like much better than the Ender/Bean series (which the exception of "Ender's Game", which I like a whole lot). One of these stand-alones is, go figure, a time travel story called "Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus". It plays with the complications and ethics of time travel in a fascinating way. There continue to be rumors that there will eventually be another novel to go with this one, not exactly a sequel but utilizing the same technology introduced in "Pastwatch". And there is already an OSC short story, "Atlantis", that also addresses these issues, which is available to be read on his website,
www.hatrack.com.
The other OSC stand-alone novel that I like very much is called "Enchantment", and is a modern retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story. There is also some time travel that goes on in this novel, but that is the least of its attractions. Sometimes, modern retellings of fairy tales don't work very well. This one does work, wonderfully well. It isn't cutesy, and it isn't a children's novel at all. It turns the story we all heard growing up into a quite adult (not in any sort of explicit way, of course - this is OSC, after all) story about love and responsiblity and duty and, maybe, fate. This is the book I chose to take along when I went to an OSC book-signing, because it my favorite of all his work that I have read.