Pathfinder

Card entwines two stories in this fascinatingly complex series opener. In one, 13-year-old Rigg is living a contented life with his acerbic and intellectually challenging father as a backcountry trapper, using his magical ability to perceive paths that show the past movements of people and animals—anywhere from minutes to thousands of years earlier. Then his father dies suddenly, and Rigg becomes an outcast with his friend Umbo, after Rigg is wrongly blamed for Umbo's brother's death. Interwoven is the story of starship captain Ram Odin, whose interspatial jump toward a new colony world results in a bizarre paradox with far-reaching consequences. The result is an amalgamation of adventure, politics, and time travel that invokes issues of class and the right to control one's own life. Yet despite its complexity, the book is never less than page-turning. While Card delves deeply into his story's knotted twists and turns, readers should have no trouble following the philosophical and scientific mysteries, which the characters are parsing right along with them. An epic in the best sense, and not simply because the twin stories stretch across centuries. Ages 12–up. (Nov.)