Book : The Worthing Saga

The Worthing Saga took me by surprise. I had read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (highly recommended), but knew that WS was a very early work of his. Much of it smacked unabashedly of Asimov's Foundation -- though not a bad influence to have. There was also an obvious Mormon influence in the book.

WS is about freedom and, suprisingly, it gave me much pause to reflect on the war, which is so easily justified as the spreading of "freedom." The moral of the story (if one were to call it that) also had weighty spiritual and/or religious implications.

The general issue could be summed up as eastern versus western thought; specifically, Taoism versus Platonic idealism. While I am in fact married to a Greek, after reading this book I felt inclined to lean towards the Chinese concept of the ying and the yang -- the belief that there is no joy without pain.

After all, if you never had to go work, there would be no such thing as a weekend -- and that, dear reader, would be the biggest travesty of all.