Reddit Reddit reviews Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

We found 17 Reddit comments about Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

Literature & Fiction
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American Literature
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus
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17 Reddit comments about Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus:

u/mage12 · 13 pointsr/bestof

Discussion of Columbus always reminds me of Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. It's a fascinating combination of timey-wimeyness, discussions on morality, and literal historical revisionism. Certainly worth a read!

u/Alkalannar · 6 pointsr/worldbuilding

Look at Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus for a possible answer to both how and what.

Short version: Columbus goes East instead of West, never brings back tales of gold, dribs and drabs of people go west, the Incas/Aztecs/etc. capture them, reverse-engineer their tech, then take over Europe, slaughtering hordes in in the conflict, and bringing the culture of human sacrifice there.

u/talkingwires · 4 pointsr/112263Hulu

Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card involves altering a historical figure's fate through time travel.

The basic premise is that in the future, scientists can monitor any person at any point in the past. A small group dedicated to studying slavery starts to follow Christopher Columbus and determine what drove him West. They discover he was visited by what he believes to be an angel, but they recognize as a person from the future, who instructs him on what to do to discover the Americas. Realizing the past can be altered (and already has), three people are sent back in time to prepare the Native Americans for the first contact, so they can understand not just Columbus' language, but culture and religion. The plan is to turn him from conqueror to partner and prevent the genocide of the Native Americans.

I picked it up randomly from a thrift store years ago, and really enjoyed it. You can tell Card put a good amount of effort into historical research, which adds a lot of flavor to the story. I know Card's a nutter, but he manages to keep it in check, despite the religious nature of the story.

u/MaryOutside · 4 pointsr/books

May I also recommend Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card, as long as we're talking alternate OSC greats.

u/crazyprsn · 2 pointsr/bestof

I offer Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus for anyone who likes a good sci-fi book. Orson Scott Card does an amazing job of taking history and showing what could have been.

He had a lot of people help him with the historic accuracy, and it shows.

u/Bloodhound01 · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

This is a referall link from amazon used to make him money.

Use this link instead if you don't want to give him money.

u/[deleted] · 1 pointr/tipofmytongue
u/fishy007 · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Try Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card. It may be my favourite book. His writing isn't too complex, so it's easy to digest as well. But it's not overly simple like some modern vampire novels :|

u/nixfu · 1 pointr/Libertarian

Spoils go to the victors. That is the nature of human expansion from pre-historic times. If the natives would have not been so few in number and more powerful then things might have been different. But they were weak and it is their own fault they were conquered.

BTW, a phenomenal book on the subject of what the americas would have been like if Columbus would have gotten lost and given the natives a little more time to catch up, is "Pastwatch" by Orson Scott Card(author of Enders Game). https://www.amazon.com/Pastwatch-Christopher-Orson-Scott-Card/dp/0812508645



u/ruforealz · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Relevant (no gunpowder, though) cool ass book: Pastwatch.

u/wagedomain · 1 pointr/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu

It's not my theory, it's a book:

http://www.amazon.com/Pastwatch-Christopher-Orson-Scott-Card/dp/0812508645/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311184745&sr=8-1

A one-shot by Orson Scott Card. It's a bit interesting, in that the theory goes that Columbus accidentally allowed human sacrifice to become a major thing in the world, because South American tribes were closer than anyone thought to being almost as technologically advanced as Europeans, so giving them a couple extra hundred years means they might win and spread their beliefs.

So the last timeline put Columbus in charge of an expedition, because he was the biggest European/Christian hero of the time. Send him to America to get rid of the human sacrifice future.

He replaced human sacrifice with slavery though, so they try to refine the past to improve the future again to get rid of slavery as a "thing".

u/NinjaSupplyCompany · 0 pointsr/HistoricalWhatIf

Check out Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card if you have not already. Doesn’t cover you question but it’s a great read.

u/etherealclarity · -1 pointsr/AskReddit

You might be interested in this book.