Pastwatch
by Orson Scott Card · first published 1996
33% recommend58% neutral8% critical
From back cover Tor paperback February 1997: In one of the most powerful and thought-provoking novels of his remarkable career, Orson Scott Card interweaves a compelling portrait of Christopher Columbus with the story of a future scientist who believes she can alter human history from a tragedy of bloodshed and brutality to a world filled with hope and healing.
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
Related books
2007–2025Ender's Shadow
Orson Scott Card
Recommended by 25 · mentioned by 3925 recommend · 39 mention25 recommend · 3925 recommend
2011–2026The Light of Other Days
Stephen Baxter, Arthur C. Clarke
Recommended by 23 · mentioned by 5023 recommend · 50 mention23 recommend · 5023 recommend
2007–2026Speaker for the Dead
Orson Scott Card
Recommended by 44 · mentioned by 12744 recommend · 127 mention44 recommend · 12744 recommend
2007–2026Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card
Recommended by 169 · mentioned by 436169 recommend · 436 mention169 recommend · 436169 recommend
2007–2026Ringworld
Larry Niven
Recommended by 51 · mentioned by 15951 recommend · 159 mention51 recommend · 15951 recommend
2007–2026Guns, Germs, and Steel
Jared Diamond
Recommended by 214 · mentioned by 510214 recommend · 510 mention214 recommend · 510214 recommend
This is basically what Pastwatch: Redemption by Orson Scott Card is about. Bit of sci-fi but that's the general gist - quite a nice read. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003H4I4KO/
on “Americapox: The Missing Plague (2015)” ↗I respect that he can write a book without selling dogma. I love Enchantment and Pastwatch, even if the Ender series has faded with time.
on “Ender's Game Review” ↗Reminds me of one of my favorite books (well, not really. The premise was incredible and the writing was impeccable but it was part one of a trilogy that never materialized): Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus It was basically a brilliant alternative historical fiction novel based around the premise of being able to rewatch the past.
on “Gravitational Lensing to Observe Ancient Earth” ↗In Orson Scott Card's "Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus" (awesome book, btw! I don't think he's planning on writing the remaining 2 in the trilogy, though :() they have machines that do exactly this, letting them monitor…
on “Gravitational Lensing to Observe Ancient Earth” ↗For a while, years ago, I was on an "alternative history" fiction kick. Most of it is dreck, but one diamond in that rough was Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus[1]. Without giving too much away, it's about a group of future historians that use time-travel to study past cultures, and discover that they can not only view…
on “Ancient DNA sheds light on what happened to the Taino, the native Caribbeans” ↗Have you read "Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus" by Orson Scott Card? It get's a little weirdly preachy, but the idea that Columbus really is the fulcrum about which the fate of the Americas tips, and that if…
on “Searching the Internet for evidence of time travelers” ↗…he's apologizing for it. Ender's Game is about murder writ small and large, and the provocative question it asks is whether you can blame Ender for what he did. Hart's Hope does that with adultury; Pastwatch with slavery and cultural imperialism. Even when he's not that provocative, the world just tends to be nasty and not always in a very redeeming way. Kingsmeat and Unaccompanied Sonata may be the worst…
on “Has sci-fi run out of steam?” ↗Similar theory, though using the Red Sea, is used in the book Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. What do you think of the maybe prevailing theory that Atlantis was actually located on Santorini? Wikipedia has all the links, but I like the fact that it is…
on “Bronze Age Greek city found underwater” ↗…Game pro-genocide is a riot, but I guess if you didn't read the next 3 novels where Ender is trying to atone for his unwitting participation through an allegory on the book of Mormon, it works. There's Pastwatch which is so pro-genocide that it has a future civilization go back in time to inoculate the Americas against European diseases, and they successfully Westernize their technology just enough to make colonization…
on “Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?” ↗That is how I consumed Pastwatch and Pathfinder. I've been keeping my eye on the local library's website for the Overdrive version. I've listened to and read all the Ender and Shadow books. Then again, you'd think that if they embraced…
on “New Ender novel released today... wait, ebook ETA in 2013?” ↗…wilderness or something to found a new city where his disciples can live in peace the way God intended <tm>. So: the Ender's Game series, the Alvin Maker series, the Homecoming series, Lovelock, Wyrms, Pastwatch, Treason, and on some level, most of the biblio-historical-fiction series. Any major Card works I'm missing? I'll give partial credit to _Songmaster_, and maybe even _Enchanted_.
on “Ender's Game is an Understated Story of Uncertainty” ↗Orson Scott Card wrote a decent but weird scifi book on this premise called "Pastwatch: The redemption of Christopher Columbus." It contains a really graphic description of how a time traveling character convinces the Mayans to trust him by pulling spikes out of his penis. Weird but interesting.…
on “Network of fortified towns indicates Amazon was once heavily populated” ↗Fossil fuel depletion is also a key impetus for the action in Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card. TV Tropes calls this a "Morton's Fork" and describes it for this book as: What spurs the decision to change the past even though it'll erase…
on “Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)” ↗I would say that this sounds like a great idea for a novel, and then I remembered that Orson Scott Card already wrote Pastwatch :) What's GGS? Only found Guns, Germs, and Steel in that context, is that the one?
on “We made an animated movie in 8kB” ↗