This was our fourth read in this year’s twelve-book Siblings’ Book Club list. I genuinely and thoroughly hated it.

In years past, we’ve read some other wonderfully entertaining Orson Scott Card books together. We read Ender’s Game in 2018 and Ender’s Shadow in 2019, so I think we all felt we were due for another foray into the imaginative worlds of Card.

This book had all the weirdness of a classic sci-fi without the buy-in. I had no love for the main character, Lanik Mueller, and his mutations that caused him to grow breasts like a woman were so constantly in-your-face disturbing, that I was physically grossed out by them. I can’t believe I made it as far as I did through the book before tossing it aside (a full 90 pages), but the thing never improved. The characters never became loveable (or even mildly admirable), and I just can’t stick with a book when I’m repulsed on every page! I felt the same way many years ago with Paul Theroux’s O-Zone, and I’ve never again picked up that book either.

The gist of this story is that generations ago, certain rebellious families were banished to this planet (Treason) as punishment for their crimes. Each family has taken over certain portions of the planet, and each has a commodity they’re able to sell to “Offworld” in exchange for iron, but they can never seem to get enough to build the starship that will finally allow them to escape. The problem is, we don’t get this information until later, so the earth-like references are completely out-of-place (i.e. the horses named Hitler and Himmler on p.10—that ain’t foreshadowing, it’s nonsense!).

Lanik’s family is Mueller, and their commodity is brains—well, body parts, because they had the brains to solve the riddle or regeneration. They grow clumps of cells into walking, talking body-part factories and sell them Offworld. Lanik himself is a mutant whose body now produces parts sporadically—extra arms, legs, ears, breasts, and even ovaries. Fun.

By page 20, I was really having problems with this non-earth planet that was inexplicably earth-like, namely because of the good ol’ fashioned racism that existed between the species. The fact that one group uses the “N” word as a slur against the other was almost the straw that broke me. Seriously? In this otherworldly place probably thousands of years into the future, not only do the characters still speak English, but they also preserve slurs we don’t even want to keep around today? 1979 was a different era, sure, but it wasn’t that long ago, and it just goes to show that despite all the creativity that went into building a world that grosses readers out, Card couldn’t think up an alternative slur that could communicate the same hatred as that single word.

I ultimately quit in Chapter 6 due the spiritual-pagan (and probably Mormon-rooted) teachings his characters were getting into. It’s not what I need in my life right now. That sand and pebbles are the skin cells of the planet’s rocky skin-exterior was an intriguing concept for sure—but even then, it wasn’t a universe I wanted to explore any further.

I don’t think I’ll give up on Orson Scott Card forever. Maybe I’ll dabble into Ender’s universe again someday. But it’s not going to be for a while, because I’m still pretty grossed out from this one…and I don’t gross out easily.

©2023 E.T.