Orson Scott Card - Pastwatch (1996/2005) The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

Read by the author, Scott Brick, Christopher Cazenove, Gabrielle de Cuir, Arte Johnson, Moira Quirk, Stefan Rudnicki
13:37 unb  56/22 mono  327 MB

In a not-too-distant future that is not quite ours, there has been a major scientific breakthrough. It is a way to open windows into the past, permitting historical researchers to view, but not participate, in the events of the past.

In one of the most powerful and thought-provoking novels of his remarkable career, Orson Scott Card interweaves a compelling portrait of Christopher Columbus with the story of a future scientist who believes she can alter human history from a tragedy of bloodshed and brutality to a world filled with hope and healing.

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Anyone who's read Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong knows about the devastating consequences that Columbus's voyage and ensuing colonization had on the native people of the Americas and Africa. In a thought-provoking work that is part science fiction, part historical drama, Orson Scott Card writes about scientists in a fearful future who study that tragic past, then attempt to actually intervene and change it into something better.

Tagiri and Hassan are members of Pastwatch, an academic organization that uses machines to see into the past and record it. Their project focuses on slavery and its dreadful effects, and gradually evolves into a study of Christopher Columbus. They eventually marry and their daughter Diko joins them in their quest to discover what drove Columbus west.

Columbus, with whom readers become acquainted through both images in the Pastwatch machines and personal narrative, is portrayed as a religious man with both strengths and weaknesses, a charismatic leader who sometimes rose above but often fell beneath the mores of his times. As usual, Orson Scott Card uses his formidable writing skills to create likable, complex characters who face gripping problems; he also provides an entertaining and thoughtful history lesson in Pastwatch. 

From AudioFile
Stefan Rudnicki is the guiding force behind this intriguing novel, which involves alternative history and time travel. His deep voice and measured pace lend the sense of dignity and realism needed to sustain the book's high-concept plot: an attempt to change the devastating effects that Columbus had on natives of the Americas. The paradoxes of causality are also discussed for science fiction fans who require scientific plausibility in order to suspend disbelief. Scott Brick, Gabrielle de Cuir, and Moira Quirk utilize their talents well in voicing the Spanish explorers and the native leaders they influence prior to Cristoforo Colombo's landing. Together, the narrators bring all these characters alive. 