The Worthing Chronicle ~ Orson Scott Card

Before even starting this book, I was a little bit disappointed and confused. To get the full experience, let me set the scene, I was waiting for my sister to try some clothes on in the second basement level of a Topshop and had very little signal when my Bookbub email came through and I saw The Worthing Chronicle by Orson Scott Card. Neither the blurb nor the cover image had loaded. I love Ender’s Game, it’s one of my favourite books and Worthing is a local town, so instantly I was interested. When the blurb finally loaded, I was a little disappointed to find out that the character’s name was Worthing and it was nothing to do with the place, but I still thought I’d give it a go.

Then, things became a little confusing. After deciding that it was going to be my next book, I logged it as Currently Reading on Goodreads. Goodreads told me that The Worthing Chronicle was the third in a series. Amazon made no mention of that when I read the description and the reviews. So, I googled it. The Worthing Saga is now out of print and so, there is not as much information out there about it. Confused, I decided to read it anyway.

The Worthing Chronicle is set on a distant planet, in a tiny little farming village. Everything seems to be quite normal in their daily lives until suddenly they can all feel pain. Not long after, two strangers arrive in the village, unable to speak the local language but speaking into the minds of Lared and his younger sister. The man reveals himself to be Jason Worthing, who is thought of as God across many of the colonised planets and the woman his descendant, Justice. They have arrived in the village to ask Lared to write the book of Jason’s history.

I will be honest and say that this novel felt like a recap of events from a different perspective. Reading the description on Wikipedia of the other two books, it seems like the first three-quarters of this book was a quick re-telling of the second book with an epilogue about what happened after added on to complete the story. 

For something that was set on a distant planet in the far future, it easily felt like it was set in the middle ages with Jason and Justice being pagan gods talking about the heavens and faraway worlds. It didn’t feel like a sci-fi story. 

I love how Orson Scott Card writes his characters in Ender’s Game, none of the characters, in this, were given enough time to be fully fleshed out. After Justice was introduced, she almost disappeared from the storyline until she was needed to complete the story. However, without her, the story would have fallen to pieces as she played a crucial part in the story being told to Lared. Jason got his fair amount of page time, but he is such a vast character that had hundreds of years of history and access to so much information and yet, I can barely tell you anything about him. Lared is the most fleshed-out of all the characters, but it felt like we were only shown how he reacts not how he acts. 

Although I was disappointed with the story and how it didn’t really feel like it was going anywhere, I didn’t dislike it. Near the end, it did introduce some interesting philosophies on pain and suffering that I liked the response to. Overall, however, I feel rather neutral on this book, so I give it three stars.

C🌙