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Crossing the wall from Ramfold to Vadeshfold at the conclusion of Pathfinder is only the start of a new set of problems for thirteen-year-old Rigg Sessamekesh and his band of allies. What they learn in Vadeshfold helps Rigg solve the confusing mystery of his bizarrely split parentage, having been raised by the fur trader Ram though his secret biological father was of royal lineage. But knowing that Ram was only an android programmed to herd Rigg and his friends to this next stage of the game raises troubling questions. As Rigg takes a short breather after the life-or-death chase he, thirteen-year-old Umbo, Rigg's teenage sister Param, and their adult protectors Olivenko and Loaf just survived, he's given no time to process the latest events of their adventure before Vadesh, the android expendable from this wallfold, appears on the scene. Vadesh is identical to the man Rigg knew as his father, Ram, but Rigg senses this expendable isn't to be trusted. Unlike Ramfold, Vadeshfold is disturbingly void of human occupation, and Vadesh's patchwork explanations for the vacancy don't hold water. To figure out his next goal, Rigg will have to outwit Vadesh for the information that will lead to the next right set of choices. It's a lot for a thirteen-year-old to handle, but Rigg has trained his entire life on the planet Garden for the trials confronting him now. Years of rote memorization, esoteric academic exercises, and physical and mental toughening in the woods with Ram, all seemingly useless for a young fur trader supposedly set to follow in his father's footsteps, have provided Rigg with the skills he'll need to crack the code and best Vadesh in time to plan the next move for his unlikely caravan of loyal followers. But what will Rigg uncover in Vadeshfold?

Apparent informational outliers are strewn everywhere in Ruins as Rigg and his friends explore the eerily quiet confines of Vadeshfold, investigating the story behind the story Vadesh told them. Umbo finds a jewel lying around from the Sessamekesh royal collection of nineteen, which are designed to be used together to control passage between the wallfolds on Garden. Rigg soon learns the power of the talismanic knife he possesses, with nineteen jewels in the hilt that correlate to the wallfold jewels. On a hunch, Rigg finds his way into the control area of a starship in Vadeshfold, and through a careful series of questions to Vadesh, he discerns what the knife gives him authority to do on the ship, and how much control he can exert over Vadesh and the expendables of other wallfolds. With the threat constantly looming of violent retribution at the hands of untrustworthy Vadesh, and no certainty that the expendable isn't shading the truth or outright lying to him, Rigg cautiously feels his way in Vadeshfold, keenly attuned to the scent of truth when the wind carries it. To doubt the words and intentions of everyone is the only way to survive in this brave new world.

"We are the beasts that scheme, the predators that predict. We live by the lie, not by the truth; we study the truth only to shape more convincing lies that will bend other people to our will."

�Ruins, P. 334

In typical Orson Scott Card fashion, Ruins hoards "Ah-ha!" moments like the literary mint has stopped producing them, turning our perception of the story's paradigm upside down repeatedly. The sophisticated physics and logistics of Cardian time-travel are bewildering enough as is, but we're asked to follow the chess game further still in this second book of the Pathfinder trilogy, and the smartest of literates is likely to have his or her mind muddled now and then. Human and interspecies ethics, time-space mechanics and quantum theory and beyond, gymnastics of logic that demonstrate the contortionist mental flexibility of the author, and story twists on twists on twists that we couldn't have conceived of are a package deal with this book, as only Orson Scott Card routinely delivers them. Rigg's leadership will be tested: Is he qualified to lead a group with such an eclectic spread of fine talents as the quartet he has with him? Why does Rigg always end up giving the orders, even though he doesn't desire to lead and his friends have leadership aspirations of their own? What of his sister, Param, raised a princess of a royal family in exile, forced from infancy to despise the crown and live in the shame of a fallen monarch, a girl whose time-travel ability complements Rigg's and Umbo's as she "slices" time and goes invisible to the ordinary human eye, a talent that gave her much-needed privacy in her mother's disgraced royal household all through her childhood and early teen years? As Param makes decisions in the real world for the first time in her life, traveling with a crowd of far less noble breeding (excepting Rigg) than she is accustomed, can she look past the prejudices of her lineage to discern her rightful place on Rigg's team, whatever it may be and to whomever it be expedient she render herself a helper? Loaf and Olivenko are the oldest members of the group, trained soldiers and intellects equal to the task of protecting Rigg and Param, but the two men are just as perplexed as to what is happening on the planet Garden, and are left questioning who is really in charge of this expedition.

In light of Rigg's heroics at the end of Pathfinder and take-charge attitude now that the wall has been breached and the five of them are safely in Vadeshfold away from their Ramfold pursuers, Umbo targets Rigg in his own mind, harboring growing resentment of what the uncrowned Sessamekesh heir is able to do that he cannot. Ram focused his time on Rigg, despite not being any more a genetic father to Rigg than he was to Umbo. Umbo might be just as good a leader as Rigg, mightn't he? And aren't his time-altering skills every bit as potent? As Umbo's anger simmers and their party of five moves toward discovering their ultimate purpose in Vadeshfold, a catastrophic reality comes to light: The Visitors, humans from planet Earth who settled Garden millennia ago, will return in only a few years to check on Garden's inhabitants. After this initial vetting, the Visitors will depart, then come back...as Destroyers, to annihilate life on Garden in its every form. Why would the Visitors destroy the people of their own colony planet, who greet the coming of the Visitors in nothing but peace? It is messages sent back through time from this bleak future after the Visitors' destruction that alert Rigg to the fate of Garden, and it's up to Rigg and his friends to engineer a way to prevent the Destroyers from doing their dark deed. Nine times already attempts have been made to alter the dismal future, and each try has ended in the same fiery purge from deep space. What can Rigg do differently to preserve the future of Garden?

I'm more convinced than ever after reading Ruins that Orson Scott Card has a brilliant mind, far beyond my own intelligence. His feel for the contours of story is more than I can comprehend, and his view of characters, deep psychology, and the outer limits of science are justifiably regarded with the highest esteem. The twists he conceals in his novels are more than clever "gotcha" moments borne of excellent planning: they are foundationally strong, profound observations of the human condition and why we do the things we do, what rationalizations we plead to condone ourselves and what it means when we accept a line of logic or morality but others affected by our subsequent behavior do not. It makes for fascinating, stringently challenging reading, and I love it, as difficult as it can be. Orson Scott Card's wisdom as a storyteller is beyond fault, powerful and illuminating of others as well as ourselves, and I want to highlight a few examples in this review. Early on as his resentment for Rigg boils, Umbo finds his feelings being redirected to the expendables lying to them all, and wonders if it really is the varied outside agents of frustration that disgust him, or if the problem is internal. "But was it them that he really resented? Was it anybody, really, that was making him feel this way? Or did he simply have these feelings and searched for someone outside himself to blame them on?" I've asked myself that question many times, usually without a satisfactory answer. It's validating, though, to see others ask it of themselves. Then there's this engaging piece, which speaks for itself: "It's a lot more fun to hear stories about other people than to live through them yourself...Because when somebody told you a story, he knew how it was going to come out. He wouldn't tell it to you if it wasn't worth telling, if it didn't amount to something. But when you're living through it, you don't know if it's going to come out well, or even matter at all. Maybe you come all this way and the story goes on down a tunnel and you're left behind, no longer part of it. Maybe you came back and warned yourself and saved yourself a serious beating—but that's what ended the story for you. No broken arm, no torn ear—but also doomed to...go on and on, wandering, exploring, all to no effect, accomplishing nothing because you listened to your beaten-up time-traveling self and took yourself right out of the story." There's a lot to muse over in those paragraphs, more than I can unpack here, and it's even more thought-provoking in the context of the narrative. Who but Orson Scott Card thinks to serve up such conundrums to his readers? There are a few writers who do, but not many.

Ah, here is Olivenko's rebuttal to the idea that surrendering to death after a lifetime of weariness and severe pain could be a welcome release: "And yet I don't want to do it...Not now, not ever. Miserable as I sometimes am in this life, I like being alive...I'm used to having these fingers do my bidding. I don't even have to ask them. Before I even think of what I want, before I could put my wishes into words, they're already obeying me. My feet, too. My eyes open when I want to see, and close when I want to sleep. Such obedient servants. I'd miss them." The soliloquy is a simple one, even humorous, but effective. It speaks to the reader on a visceral level of understanding. And to Param's followup question, "So you think some part of you will persist after death?" "'If not, I won't know it,' said Olivenko. 'And if so, then I'll miss my hands and feet and eyes and also lunch. I'll miss food. And sleep. And waking up.'" That's perfect. Don't ever change, Olivenko.

Orson Scott Card always was an uncompromising supporter of conservative virtues, with innovative, original thinking to support his beliefs, and some commentary of that nature appears in Ruins, particularly when Earth's proclivity for espousing a culture of tolerance is discussed. "'The whole literature of Earth is full of condemnation of people who hate others just for being strange and different,' said Rigg. 'Their histories are full of self-congratulation about how they've left such base impulses behind them. The worst thing their biographers and historians can say about a person is that he judges people on the basis of differences in their physical attributes, their languages, their cultures.'" That sounds good, but Rigg gives a reluctant addendum at Loaf's prodding: "Yes, I know. The very fact that they condemn xenophobia so harshly is proof that they hadn't overcome it at all." "An aspirational virtue, not an achievement", Olivenko adds. They're all correct, of course. Fear of personal differences extends to every dissenting viewpoint out there, not just those whose cause we care to champion. To rail against the intolerant, or the supposedly intolerant, is to expose our lack of tolerance of their worldview because we can't harmonize it with our own. With a few flicks of the pen, Orson Scott Card admonishes those with a xenophobic intolerance of intolerance, calling them to a higher standard of integrity. It's definitely an idea for further pondering.

"When changes come, we start with what we are right then, and then we work to try to become whoever we need to be."

—O±ô¾±±¹±ð²Ô°ì´Ç, Ruins, P. 401

It excites the senses to read the rapid-fire exchange between Rigg, Umbo, Loaf, and Olivenko on the subject of virtual intelligence versus the might of the human mind. The speedy, eloquently plotted conversation includes this gem of reasoning from Loaf: "Humans make a machine, and then fool themselves into believing that their own brains are no better than the machines. This allows them to believe that their creation, the computer, is as brilliant as their own minds. But it's a ridiculous self-deception. Computers aren't even in the same league." I agree with that critique, spoken by a military man who has observed the ins and outs of human behavior long enough to opine from a position of authority. Just a few paragraphs later, he contributes the following string of pearlescent reasoning to the back-and-forth: "Life is the soul...Living things have souls, have minds, have thought. Living individuals have their own relationship to the planet they dwell on. Their past is dragged along with their world through space and time. But it persists. Long after the organism dies, its path remains, and all that it was can be recovered, every moment it lived through can be seen, can be revisited." Loaf's education and genetic grooming is lower than that of the others in the group, but he holds his own in any debate with the young prodigies. Loaf is a character of sometimes superb wit, wisdom, and conveyance.

Without any verbal agreement by the others, Rigg has taken on the burden of navigating them through the dangers of every wallfold, the lies of the expendables and of natives poised to deceive them for their own interests, the threats of the powerful and weak in equal measure. But such enormous responsibility exacts a heavy toll on the young Sessamekesh prince, as we see in the following lines when Rigg finds himself engulfed in solitude for a time, with no companion to lend support: "Yes, he was alone, but he needed to be alone; until now, he had not really understood how painful and heavy it was to have the needs of others always in his heart and on his mind." A rest for the weary hero is sometimes necessary, even before the final battle has been waged. The greatest of hearts cannot be turned only outward all the time.

It isn't easy to pinpoint a central theme of Ruins. The story covers so much ground, giving every issue the consideration it deserves, and that adds up to a novel of substance and meaning on an elevated plane from most young-adult works. Introspective readers will rejoice to bury themselves in the more than five hundred pages of this book, for it is a trying and demanding philosophical experience, but one which ultimately nourishes the souls of those valiant enough to make it through to the other side. Orson Scott Card is at or near his best in this second volume of the Pathfinder trilogy, a book equal to or better than the first. I will be there to finish Rigg's story in the third book, Visitors, a happily engaged reader counting himself lucky to have taken part in some small way in Orson Scott Card's legacy. I'm reminded of his observation in the Introduction to the 1991 edition of Ender's Game: "The story of Ender's Game is not this book, though it has that title emblazoned on it. The story is the one that you and I will construct together in your memory. If the story means anything to you at all, then when you remember it afterward, think of it, not as something I created, but rather as something that we made together." I believe that, heart and soul, about the books I read. I recommend Ruins today, tomorrow, and forever, and hope future readers will love it as much as I did. I bequeath it to you with the sincere hope that you take care of each other during your time together. May you both live long in mutual blessing.