: Wyrms
Author: Orson Scott Card
What a fantastic book! I thought this was a newer novel of Card’s because I hadn’t heard of it, but apparently it’s older, from the late 1980s, and got lost amongst his more popular works. However, this is one of his best. It is set thousands of years in the future on a planet colonized by humans 7,000 years earlier. The humans and local species have interbred and evolved into several new species, each of which are interesting. A key part of the novel is that the indigenous species can communicate through telepathy while humans cannot (though humans are susceptible to its influence). The main human character is a young girl, the seventh seventh seventh daughter (basically 300 generations down) who has been prophesied to be either the savior or destroyer of the world, so various groups want her dead or alive. Her mission is to kill the Unwyrm, the original indigenous creature of the planet, who is calling her telepathically to mate with her: he has waited 7,000 years for the human DNA to reach a point where perfect merging is possible. She does not want this and wants to kill him, for he seeks the end of humanity, but she is powerless to resist his telepathic call. That is the core conflict, and it sets up a fascinating world of humans, creatures, politics, and religion, and Card brilliantly allows amazing discussions on the nature of good and evil, why a good person who does bad things can still be good, and so on. The novel is action-adventure — the girl has been trained as an assassin by her father — and thus it’s a wonderful blend of philosophical discussion and action. I listened to the audiobook version but this is one I will probably buy in book form to reread and have on my shelf. It’s that good.
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