If OSC decided to write another book for the Homecoming series, what do you think would be a good story line?
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
ummm . . . someone finds a history of the people and tries to build a society around it. Those who join are at first marginalized and eventually form an uneasy relationship with the existing world.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
I have the storyline already set. You'll find it in the Book of Mormon, the story of the mission to the Lamanites by the sons of the king. Throughout the series (well, except for vol. 2), I had the Book of Mormon open as my plot outline. So the storylines were already set.
Volume 2 was a complete digression, but a natural one - since I had created a completely separate society of women, there were vast plot elements that had no correspondence within the Book of Mormon. But for those, I wung it instead of using any detailed outline.
The whole of book six would have been set up to justify one of the characters saying, near the end, "Oh, that I were an angel!" <grin>
We didn't include the information about the book being based on the Book of Mormon in the book, because then people would think it was a religious book; it isn't. It uses the plots and characters from the stories in the Book of Mormon, but not the doctrines; there is no effort in the novels to convert or convince anybody of the tenets of a real religion; it is, as are all my works, an exploration of characters, relationships, and communities.
Posted by pwiscombe (Member # 181) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orson Scott Card: The whole of book six would have been set up to justify one of the characters saying, near the end, "Oh, that I were an angel!" <grin>
You mean like when a young Mon is stitting on the roof listening to the evening song of the Angels and exclaims "Oh, that I were an angel!"
Already done in Book 5
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
So adding the extra book would make book 5 an expanded version of the first part of Earthborn (the mission to rescue the Zenifi), and book 6 an expanded version of the rest of Earthborn? When I read the series I knew from here that some of the planned story had been cut out, but I didn't guess it was there. I figured that the extra book had been compressed into the very end of Earthfall and that it was supposed to fill in the time between Earthfall and Earthborn. Anybody else think this?
I'd also like to see a novel set during the original destruction of Earth 40 million years prior to Homecoming or even---hey, we're just wildly speculating here---a whole series going from the destruction of Earth to the establishment of the first settlements on Harmony. (But I don't suppose this would parallel anything in the Book of Mormon.) Maybe we could get a more specific answer as to what the Keeper of Earth really is.
Posted by MateoMcD (Member # 1452) on :
I love seeing the word "wung" used in a completely appropriate and contextually understandable way. One of my favorite things is seeing words that may not even exist for the first time and having them used so perfectly as to leave no doubt as to their meaning. Words that ought to exist, even if they don't!
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
You must've read OSC's review of the book on Scrabble a few weeks ago.
Posted by Sergeant (Member # 8749) on :
For some reason I have never read the Homecoming series despite having read nearly everything else he has published (If I found it I read it). I'll have to remedy this during the summer when I have some time.
Sergeant
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
"(But I don't suppose this would parallel anything in the Book of Mormon.)"
Actually, Omega, it would. I don't know if he added anything about the Jaredites in his previous novels. However, for the most part it is the story of the rise and fall of an Empire.
Posted by Oobie Binoobie (Member # 8059) on :
_Earthborn_ includes mention of someone named Coriantumr, and a discussion of a previous human colony from which he came.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
With only secondhand familiarity with the Book of Mormon, I assumed that the Jaredites were represented by the Rasulum (Coriantumr's people), not by the original Earth people of 40 million years ago. The Jaredites came to North America before Nephi's people, right?
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by MateoMcD: I love seeing the word "wung" used in a completely appropriate and contextually understandable way. One of my favorite things is seeing words that may not even exist for the first time and having them used so perfectly as to leave no doubt as to their meaning. Words that ought to exist, even if they don't!
Yeah, I'm officially delighted by "wung" as well.
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
Omega M.: Yes.
It's been years since I've read Homecoming, but if it had Coriantumr in it, and a discussion of the previous human colony from which he came, that would correspond to the Jaredites.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
quote:Originally posted by MateoMcD:
I love seeing the word "wung" used in a completely appropriate and contextually understandable way. One of my favorite things is seeing words that may not even exist for the first time and having them used so perfectly as to leave no doubt as to their meaning. Words that ought to exist, even if they don't!
Lucky he patterned it after "fling" rather than "ring."