This parts of the Homecoming story explores the dynamics of marriage and sex in a society that is run by women. It is barely science fiction. It reminds me a little of Ursula Le Guin, except Le Guin is much more obvious and usually stretches the boundaries of relationships even more.

This story sends our group back to the the city of Bascilica to find wives. That is an interesting challenge because the marriage customs in the city are to be married for one year at a time. This mission to find wives is the reason there is so much discussion of marriage and sex in this book.

During this story there is also a political power struggle in the city of Bascilica. The Overseer (the supercomputer acting as god in this society) continues to manipulate the group to lead a group of people on a colonization mission.

The story is slow paced. There is not much progress toward the colonization mission, but there is some interesting dynamics explored in the relationships.

I read the first installment in this series many years ago, and I’ve had this one in reserve on my hard drive for years, savoring and anticipating what I was sure would be a great experience. I came away largely disappointed and questioning whether I want to continue with the series.

This is a hard review to write. This entire Homecoming series is loosely based on the First Book of Nephi, which is one of 15 books that comprise The Book of Mormon. I cannot stress hard enough the importance of the concept of loosely based.

The author attempts early on here to depict the evil that has befallen the city of Basilica. In so doing, he creates scenes that I found vulgar and somewhat explicit. Those early scenes are entirely Card’s creation. They do not occur at all in The Book of Mormon but I understand why they are there. Card is attempting to help you see why 14-year-old Nafai, and his family have been directed to leave the city and return from a long-ago colonized planet to Earth.

When Nafai’s planet was originally colonized, a computer called Oversoul was in charge of its affairs. Oversoul regulated the entire planet, preventing its citizenry from developing war-like technologies and doing what it could to stop the cities that were colonized from decaying into tribes or worse.

For a time, it succeeded, but as it aged, Oversoul knew it could no longer prevent the colonists from warring against one another. The only hope for the colonists lie with young Nafai and his family. That family had to return to Earth and alert the Earth’s keeper as to the decaying condition of the Oversoul computer.

In this second installment of the series, Nafai and his brothers seek wives from among the women of Basilica. You see brief glimpses into the characters of the women chosen. Nafai’s mother is depicted here as some kind of sophisticate who understands the intrigue and machinations of the city’s politics, but a woman who is faithfully married to Nafai’s father, who barely figures into this book. Nafai’s wife is 13-year-old Luet, and she is portrayed here as being more virtuous and magnificent than anyone should ever be, especially at that age.

I won’t belabor your time much more with any additional plot information. I suppose I’ll give book three a try at some point in the event that it becomes and enthralling story again as it was in book one.

(Yes, I am reading all 5 in the series.) This was a little better than the first book with the addition of Moozh, an unexpected character who overtakes the city of Basilica with brilliance and furthers the work of the Oversoul in his efforts to do the opposite of what the Oversoul desires. Interesting moral discussions (Are we "puppets" if we obey a higher power or are we followers of choices that we make? What is the nature of family, what is its place in society?). There was too much specific sex talk in this and volume one for my taste.

Mankind fled the Earth after finally destroying it with their weapons of mass destruction. The few humans left after the holocaust vowed never to let their species develop the ability to destroy itself again. And so, when they colonized the planet Harmony, some 1000 light years from Earth, they built a super-intelligent computer, calling it the Oversoul, to watch over their descendants. For almost 40 million years the Oversoul did what it was programmed to do, guiding humanity and always steering their thoughts away from any inventions that could lead to war on a large scale. Then the Oversoul’s network of satellites orbiting the planet began to deteriorate and the thoughts of men began to return to conquest and greed.

According to its programming, if the Oversoul ever lost control of its charges it was to gather up a faithful few and lead them into the desert, where the great ships still lay waiting with the purpose of returning them to Earth: an Earth which should by this time have healed itself, to begin again. The Oversoul searched Harmony and found fourteen-year-old Nafai and his family.

It will not be an easy road for Nafai. As the youngest member of his family, he will have to convince his three older brothers to follow him into the desert. And that’s not all. The Oversoul’s purpose is to begin a new colony on Earth, so Nafai will also have to get his brothers to find wives to go along and a scientist who can restore some of the useful plants and animals they will need.

But what will the brave travelers find if they make it to Earth? The Oversoul often speaks to the people of Harmony through dreams but now some of the key players are receiving dreams from somewhere else. The Oversoul admits that it does not precisely know where the rogue dreams are coming from but thinks it may be the Keeper of Earth, an even more powerful computer left behind to watch over the planet and call its children back when the time was right. But what message is the Keeper sending? The dreams are full of hairy flying creatures and giant rats that burrow in the ground. Is the Keeper truly calling them home, or is it warning them away?

n  The Call of Earthn is the second book in Orson Scott Card’s epic Homecoming series. Card is doing a nice job of piecing the story together. Nafai had a hard enough time convincing his father and brothers to leave their home and go on the Oversoul’s errand, but it is unlikely he could ever have convinced the women to leave behind their comfortable existence.

That’s where General Moozh comes in. Moozh figured out a long time ago that there was something like a deity watching over Harmony. He also noticed that whenever his thoughts turned to war and conquest it became more and more difficult to focus on a clear path. Rather than follow the Oversoul’s urgings, Moozh trained himself to fight against the urges, and follow his own path toward glory. That’s what brings Moozh to the city of Basilica as a conqueror.

Moozh isn’t quite as clever as he thinks, however. The Oversoul knows that Moozh can resist it and so uses the old reverse psychology trick on him. Whatever the Oversoul wants Moozh to do, it urges him in the opposite direction, therefore getting exactly what it wants from Moozh anyway. This is an important piece of the puzzle because if Moozh had not come to conquer Basilica, the women would never have left their beloved city with Nafai and the men. Everything fits together nice and neat.

Having said all that, I have to admit that the pacing was a bit slow on this one. Card showed us an important piece of the puzzle here but I really felt like he took too long developing it. I mean, General Moozh conquered Basilica and all sixteen of the travelers finally come together in the desert to prepare for their journey and that’s pretty much all that happened. I didn’t feel like there was enough plot development here to warrant an entire book. But if you skip this one the rest of the series won’t make as much sense, so there you go.

The most interesting thing to me about n  The Call of Earthn, and the series as a whole so far, is the parallel Card seems to be drawing to the bible. In the scriptures, God placed man on Earth, a fresh and unspoiled planet. Over time, man became more distant from God, following His urgings less and less. Finally, God got fed up and destroyed the Earth choosing one faithful family, Noah and his sons, to board the ark and be spared to start over. In Card’s Homecoming series so far, we’ve seen mankind placed on a new, unspoiled planet with the Oversoul as their guide and protector. Over time, man listens to the Oversoul less and less until finally the Oversoul chooses one faithful family to spare while the rest are presumably left to war and devastation. It hasn’t happened yet but Nafai and his family are on their way to board their ark, a spaceship this time, and have a whole new world to start over in. Kind of makes me wonder if Orson Scott Card is a religious man.

n  The Call of Earthn, and the entire Homecoming series is narrated by sci-fi regular Stefan Rudnicki. There isn’t much I can say about Rudnicki that I haven’t said already. He’s a good narrator that never becomes dull after a while like some. You’ll never go wrong with a Stefan Rudnicki narration.

So the die is cast and the key players have finally come together. I can’t wait for them to make the trip to Earth and see what the planet has been doing for the last 40 million years without the plague of man on it.

Steven Brandt @ Audiobook-Heaven