Homebound Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Colossal Cave Adventure and our BookBrowse Review of Homebound.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. The novel begins with an epigraph by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel on loneliness. Did this quote impact your experience of the themes of the novel? How does it hint at what's in store for the reader?
2. When we first meet Becks, she says, "Here is one of the things you taught me: every program is like a conversation in which the programmer asks one question over and over again, 'How do I make the code do X?' and the code answers, offers a cascade of answers ..." What are some of the early questions raised in this novel? Are they answered by the end? Who is Becks addressing throughout the novel, and why is that person so important to her?
3. Who are Yesiko and Root? What do they do to make their living, and what do we know about their world and their ship, Babylon? What does Elan suggest about the future world of 2586 through her portrayal of the day-to-day life of these two characters, the towns and ports they visit, and the debt Yesiko owes to the mysterious Chante?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Scribner. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.