When I was a teenager I tried really hard to like Orson Scott Card’s books. I read Ender’s Game and loved it. I read Speaker for the Dead and was bored out of my mind. Then I read eight or ten of his other books and had a similar experience.

I finally gave up. I’ve moved on, mostly. He does have some intriguing ideas that make me think about reading his books every once in awhile. (This happens when I read about Terry Brooks as well – though usually the desire to read his books is more of a “Hmm I wonder how that turned out?” which almost invariably has the answer “Huh? What? I wasn’t asleep.”)

Treason was loaned to me by somebody who frequently asked me if I was reading it yet or I probably never would have. This is a pre-Ender book – as in written before Ender’s Game.

The writing is sparse and fast – a trademark of early Card – and it feels unpolished in places. His prose is never showy or fancy but merely adequate to get the job done. The story, on the other hand, is surprisingly layered in so many ways that it felt more like Timothy Zahn than Orson Scott Card. Events from early in the book are layered back in later and then folded in again when you think you are done with them. It really did keep me guessing all the way through.

I enjoyed this book. It was sort of a return to the early Card that I enjoyed so much when I read Ender’s Game. It feels kind of like Ender’s Game and the Alvin Maker series mashed together in one book. It’s chock full of ideas and mostly feels more like a fantasy than science fiction. If you’ve been looking for something by Card to read then I would recommend this book over most of his others.

Just to give you a rough idea of how charmingly fudged up this book is; the protagonist Lanik Mueller is a teenage boy who can regenerate any body parts (yes, any) and he has two lovely-cutesy horses named Hitler and Himmler. This nice charming young man should be going on an adventure and marry a fairy princess at the end of the rainbow or something but as the plot would have it, Lanik is exiled from his kingdom and set on the path to uncover the conspiracy that enslave planet Treason. Treason is a prison planet without hard metals so all the rival clans are plotting schemes to get iron from the offworlders in order to be the first to build escape spaceship.

I really did tried but I’m going sit this one out. The idea of the book is very original and the story pretty intriguing right up to the point where Lanik goes through a phase where he has to find his true self, accept destiny, make peace with family, save the world…all while having one mother of a Messiah complex. The story goes round and round and ends up nowhere. Also Lanik’s journey took so long I eventually zoned out. I know I’m just a sci-fi novice here but dammit! my attention span has been forged by the weirding way of the Bene Gesserit and fortified by Heinlein’s lectures. You still managed to bore me to oblivion, Lanik Mueller!

I’d better make a fresh start with Ender series

Orson Scott Card is one of the classic Sci Fi writers. His books well known to people who enjoy the genre. Treason, though, ventured into the fantasy realm slightly with some of the things the main character was able to learn and do. To me, the story was a pseudo magical take on Gulliver's Travels, if Gulliver learned a new ability with each land he visited. I enjoyed the form of the story and the people the main character met. A good mix of the scientific and the fantastical.

I really wonder if Card is really a Mormon. The things I see him write about, and the things I see Brandon Sanderson write about is completely different.(Talking about Sanderson's aversion to anything adult other than killing.) It makes me think that Sanderson is personally against those things, instead of it being a religious following, as I was lead to believe. Either way this book was great.

As it was said before "Any technology sufficiently advance, would be indistinguishable from magic". This seems more a magic than scifi novel. How did these people develop these abilities without technology? They are talking about genetics.. that means stainless steel instruments and devices... meaning iron. How was this possible? Either way it was great following the protagonist around. I honestly thought he would have visited every family and learned at their feet.

Improbable events aside, it was a great enjoyable book.

4/5 Stars