It's been a while since I last read a book cover to cover. Largely because of life taking most of my library into boxes while we prepared to and actually moved. Christmas cured this problem because my wife got me an awesome book, Pathfinder by Orson Scot Card (my favorite author of all time). This book is about a young man (13 years old at the start of the book),Rigg, who is raised by a man who is a trapper. This trapper however spends every waking moment of the boys life teaching him things that have almost nothing to do with trapping. He teaches him languages, astronomy, rhetoric, politics, finance, math, and other non-trapping things. The boy absorbs the teachings like most kids would when given no alternatives and is spectacularly intelligent because of the teachings. (This should start sounding very familiar...think Ender's Game) While being exceptionally intelligent is important to the story the most remarkable thing about him is the fact that he can see "paths" of people from the past. He knows where animals, plants, and people have traveled based on the path they leave behind. He doesn't fully understand the meaning of the paths but his Father teaches him enough to eventually begin to understand what they mean. When his Father passes in a tragic accident, Rigg must start a journey that is full of twists and turns that will keep your mind reeling at the possibilities. Rigg, together with Umbo, a childhood friend, start off together and eventually find that they both possess remarkable "skills" that when combined cause time and space to not work the way we come to expect...and that is when things get VERY interesting.
This book is perhaps every bit as good as Ender's Game which for me is about the highest praise I could give a book. The thought provoking dilemmas and the awesome characters come together to be every ounce the greatness of Ender's Game. While solidly in the Fantasy genre...it crosses borders in ways that make it equally Science Fiction. I can't recommend this book enough. If you want to get it I've tried to make it easy by giving you a link to Amazon.com. Let me know what you think after you've read it...I can hardly wait for the next part of the series.