The Worthing Chronicle

by Orson Scott Card

Jason Worthing and one of his descendants, Justice, go to a small village on a backward world to get a boy named Lared to write a book for them. This book is about why Abner Doon destroyed the empire and the planet Capitol and why Jason's descendants destroyed the planet Worthing. It also explains why people all over the settled part of the galaxy are no longer being protected by "God" from pain and hardship.

The Worthing Chronicle is an expansion of Card's first novel, Hot Sleep.