Pastwatch:
The Redemption of Christopher Columbus
by Orson
Scott Card
Suppose
the world were dying. Suppose you pinpointed the cusp on which the
world’s fate turned as Christopher Columbus’ journey to the New World.
And suppose that you discovered you could influence Columbus and put the
world on a more peaceful path. Would you? Should you?
In
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, Orson Scott
Card examines these questions. Two hundred years in our future, historians
in the Pastwatch project watch history through a machine, the Trusite II.
They watch significant events, study patterns in human behavior, chart
weather patterns, and recover scientists’ and mathematicians’ lost notes.
They find Noah’s Ark. Then one day, a particularly talented historian
discovers she can affect the past. Years later, her daughter discovers
the past has already been changed by a team of historians from another
timeline. As the world dies around them, the historians and scientists
of Pastwatch develop a plan to carefully alter their past, wipe themselves
and seven hundred years of their ancestors from existence, and save the
world for future generations. For anyone interested in history, environmentalism,
indigenous peoples, or simply a good time-travel yarn, Orson Scott Card’s
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus is a must-read.
Hatrack
River: The Official Web Site of Orson Scott Card
Medieval
Sourcebook: Christopher Columbus: Extracts from Journal
The
Columbus Navigation Homepage
(Sample) Review submitted
by Sarah Roberson
Mrs. Smith's Third
Period Sophomore English class
January 5, 2000
Pastwatch is
available at FHS Library (call# CAR)