Some Science Fiction writers disdain God, but Card treasures the concept of God. And he takes great respect with their faith. Card is Mormon, but almost always makes his main characters Catholic. The other interesting aspect of Card, is his use of religion. Parents stuggle with properly raising their children and those parts are very real to me, even if I don’t have children and likely never will. Procreation and child rearing as destiny are themes that are almost always in Card’s books. He seems to know how to write almost impossibly intelligent children in a way that is not only believable but make me want to strive to find and nurturer these children. How many other political thrillers reference Rodney Stark (a significant figure in Sociology of Religion and History of Christianity) multiple times. But the bulk of the story is really a political thriller. There is still shooting and war and heroism and dying. The political parts deal with how a beneign “dictator” really works through a monumental problem like that. This book introduces a plague that could kill off half the population of the world. The first book introduces the main characters, allows a civil war in the US and does what almost no book is really allowed to do, (spoiler alert, highlight blank area if you really want to know) kills off the main character about half way through the book. And because it already has a movie deal and a video game franchise associated with it, there will be some incentive to keep it running. My guess is that we are looking at 4 or 5 books minimum. The Hidden Empire is the second of what I think is going to be a long series. But when you can create your own society and your laws of physics and economics and language and travel you can move past the mundane to see what is important. It is hard to really play with society and philsophy when you are stuck in the day to day world we live in. Most Science Fiction is not really about the ray guns and the spaceship, but about ideas. I think this is what some people don’t understand about Science Fiction. I want to deal with ideas and philosophy and creation of utopian and distopian societies to help us understand what is important about life right now. Orson Scott Card does with Science Fiction (which is what I consider this, even if it is near term political drama) what I look for out of Science Fiction authors. Although there are some ups and downs with that. I have read almost everything that he has ever written.

Purchase Links: Amazon Hardcover, Amazon Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audiobook Takeaway: Solid near term science fiction/political thriller.

Hidden Empire by Orson Scott Card