Treason
Reviewed date: 2008 May 30
Rating: 4
275 pages
At last, a good book. Treason is a reworked version of one of Orson Scott Card's earliest novels, A Planet Called Treason. The plot is the same, so it's really just a polish on the writing itself. The story is unchanged. It does show some signs of immaturity, but it's a great story nonetheless.
Treason is ostensibly science fiction but it's really just a fantasy. Just a fantasy? No, it's not just anything. It's an exciting, engaging, fun story. As always, Card's characters grapple with tough moral questions more than with struggles against physical enemies.
Lanik Mueller is heir to the throne of Mueller. The Muellers have genetically engineered their bodies to regenerate damaged or lost body parts. A Mueller can regrow an arm or a leg, or recover from a stab wound in mere minutes. When he reaches puberty, Lanik's status is jeopardized when he shows signs of being a radical regenerative. Instead of repairing damaged tissue and regrowing lost body parts, Lanik's body grows extra body parts at random: additional legs and arms, duplicate internal organs, and even breasts. Rads like Lanik are normally condemned to the flesh pens where their extra body parts are harvested for sale, but Lanik's father arranges for him to be sent into exile rather than face the degradation of the pens.
I'm too lazy to write a decent review, so this is the end.