Hart's Hope, by Orson Scott Card

So, the 800 pound gorilla got an eight hundred word blog post. (I don't know if that's really how long it was, but it was a biggie). Today we will do something shorter.

Hart's Hope is, in my opinion, one of Orson Scott Card's best novels. That doesn't mean it's an easy read--rather the opposite. (I find that there's often an inverse ratio between "quality" and "ease of reading" for Card's novels.) By saying it's hard to read, I don't mean it's boring...again, rather the opposite. It has a lot of cruelty, a lot of sadness, and a lot of moral ambiguity. It is also a rich supply of food for thought and perhaps the most intriguing world created by Card, who does an excellent job of laying out specific details that give the reader a flavor of the culture, religions, and worldview of the characters without falling into dictionary didacticism. It's not the novel that I would choose to introduce a reader to Card's work (that would be Ender's Game, an easy choice if ever there was one) nor the novel that affected me most deeply (that would be Red Prophet, an even harder read), nor the book I would take to a desert island (Maps in a Mirror, because of his endnotes, because short stories are awesome, and because it's huge). But I think it may be the most complete of his stand-alone novels.