Orson Scott Card is one of my favorite authors because he isn't scared of emotion, nor is he scared to take his stories to the edges of known scientific understanding and manage to explain it. In speaking about his book, he wrote that he didn't avoid time paradoxes, and he doesn't.
Pathfinder was a stunning stunning exploration of agency: the choices we humans make and why. The book follows two plots: one in a future where humans leave earth to colonize a new planet and one that explores the life of the colonists' descendants. Card explores the ramifications of choices while playing with time paradoxes.
The story is a stunning visual of the ramifications of human character and the decisions we humans make and why. Rigg is a young man with an amazing ability to sense other living thing's paths: where they walked, stood, ate, died. Following his father's death, Rigg sets out to fulfill his father's last requests. Along the way, he makes friends and discovers that his world isn't what it first appears. Rigg and his friends must play the rules of a game set by imperfect people in roles of power.
I came away from the story remembering that there is a difference between right and wrong, intelligent life can justify many things by saying "for the good of the country (the people)," and the power of human ingenuity and integrity. Humility and integrity temper people in power. It people in power only have ambition, many horrible things can befall the people whom they are meant to protect.
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