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I recently bought "The Memory of Earth" for $1 at a used book sale, and I noticed that it is Volume 1 of "Homecoming".
So I am wondering, is it a complete story in itself, so that if I read it I won't feel required to immediately get volume 2? Or, is the Homecoming series really just one single work that got cut up for the publisher's reasons?
If it isn't a complete story in itself, I'll probably try to hold off a month or two before I read it. I'm pretty darn busy this month, and if I get absorbed in some multi-volume epic right now, I might find myself spending too much time reading and not enough getting things done.
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It's pretty much part of a story. But, like all of OSC's series books, it can stand alone, if you *really, really* want it to. But i wouldn't recommend it Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I wouldnt try reading them as stand alone books, if I were you. I tried it, and by god it sucked. No money, no time, and only 3 books. It was sad.
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I remember than I jumped from book 1 to book 3 and had no problems. I still consider book 3 to be the best, though that may just be lingering memories.
Posts: 2258 | Registered: Aug 2003
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I find myself unable to enjoy some of Cards' books alone. I remember reading Xenocide before CotM came out, and I was seriously ticked off. Xenocide, IMO, is not *really* novel -- it's only half of one. I had bought half a novel when I thought I had bougt the entire thing.
For that same reason, I own but have not read OCS's lastest Women of Genesis book. I'll wait for the second half of that novel to be published, and then enjoy the whole thing.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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The Homecomming books don't really stand alone (though you can get by reading book 5 by itself. There's not too much that isn't explained in the text itself, and the main characters are different.)
When Memory of Earth came out in 92 I bought it and read it in one night and enjoyed it. Then I was up a creek because I didn't know where it was going to go (and I didn't know there was a source material he was working from. I caught a vague Biblical feel, but that was about it.) Then book 2 came out and I read it quickly and was in the same situation again. Ditto with book 3. Thankfully, about a year later, I started on AOL and found Hatrack. OSC, back then, would post his entire books. Both Earthfall and Earthborn were available for download. So I finally got my fix and finished the story. That's also how I got Pastwatch and Alvin Journeyman and Children of the Mind. (Those were the good old days. And it never interfered with my purchasing of the book. I always bought them.)
You will probably want all of them, though. Ebay might have a few, if you can't get them anymore at bookstores.
Posts: 1346 | Registered: Jun 1999
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Looks like I'll wait till I've got the rest of the books in that series, and a good stretch of free reading time, before I start reading Memory of Earth.
Posts: 120 | Registered: Jun 2005
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