As many of you know, Orson
Scott Card is one of my favorite writers of Science Fiction
and Fantasy. Unsurprising, since he is one of the most popular
and successful writers around today. The first two books in the
Ender Saga, Ender's Game and Speaker
for the Dead, won both the Hugo and Nebula in consecutive
years, and I consider them to be among the finest works in the
genre.
Ender's
Game
Speaker
For The Dead
Xenocide
Children
of the Mind
Ender's Shadow
Shadow of the Hegemon
These two books are, in my opinion,
simply the best two science fiction books that I have ever read.
Both are extremely well written and interesting, with very well-developed
worlds and characters. The character of Ender, in both books,
is fascinating to watch as he grows and his relationships with
the people around him are extremely vivid and complex. It's practically
impossible not to fall in love with the character from the outset.
In general, if I was asked for a recommendation on just one science
fiction book, I would, without hesitation, recommend Ender's Game
(with confidence that the person to whom I was making the recommendation
would find and read Speaker For The Dead on their own) (actually,
to punctuate this, I actually own three different copies of each
book, two that I loan out, and one of each, which are signed,
that I guard with my life).
To cite a second opinion, Ender's Game and Speaker For
The Dead won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novel
in consecutive years. I believe that there has only been one other
author that has ever achieved that honor.
There is actually a third book in this series (Xenocide ),
but I can't say that it really lives up to the first two books
(with apologies to Mr. Card). A fourth book (which I believe is
supposed to be the last in the series) is forthcoming.
Memorable Quote: "Remember - the enemy's gate is down ."
A quick note. I think this book
can and has taken the place of Stranger in a Strange Land
as the premier sci-fi book for non-sci-fi readers. Use it as a
gift, get your friends hooked, then send them here for more titles.
XenocideI have just finished reading Xenocide for
only the second time. I say "only" since I have probably
read Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead more
often than any other book or set of books. Both Sven and I now
routinely use Ender's Game as the hook to get someone to
start on Science Fiction, and it usually works. These two books
are without a doubt two of the finest works in the genre.
Xenocide, unfortunately, is not. This book is hard for me to read because I find it so disappointing in comparison with its predecessors, and I find it even more dissapointing in comparison with its own potential. There are several problems that I have with it, the largest of these being that the book essentially collapses under its own weight.
Xenocide, like Ender's Game and even more like Speaker for the Dead, has some absolutely fantastic ideas in it. As is usually the case with Card, he brings up some interesting philosophical points, as well as some really interesting scientific ideas. Unfortunately there are simply too many ideas for one book, too many stories and bits of stories told, and so the book ends up leaving me feeling like I missed out on most of the good stuff.
One of the most difficult parts of the book is that the characters, usually a strong point for Card, are somewhat flat. The characters end up being swallowed by the almost stream-of-consciousness run of problems and questions to be dealt with - some raised in Speaker (which were plenty for a book on their own), some brand new. In addition, the reader is asked to take certain relationships as given (notably Ender and Novinha's marriage) without ever seeing any real evidence for their feelings. This is especially problematic since after Speaker for the Dead, many of the characters would have to change greatly to fit the roles they are placed into in Xenocide.
The thing that really breaks this book for me, however, is that the solution to all of the problems raised in the book seems to come out of nowhere. It seems like one moment we are following the characters as they try to solve this mountain of problems, and then someone says "Hey, I know, let's solve our problems by figuring out faster-than-light travel!". Additionally, because of this, the solution they come up with (seemingly far too quickly) sounds too much like magic. It is actually a neat idea, but since there doesn't seem to be any progression towards it anywhere else, it becomes very difficult to take seriously.
Where Ender's Game is stunningly powerful in its simplicity, and Speaker for the Dead equally so for its thought-provoking and understated philosophy, Xenocide is mortally wounded by becoming to complex and preachy. You often feel as though Card is sitting there saying "Hey, this is what I'm trying to say, listen to this paragraph here," rather than his usual wonderful style of letting the reader form their own opinions on interesting questions and listen to his great stories.
Now, through all of this criticism, I must reiterate that most
of the ideas are really excellent. The people of Path, the mysteries
surrounding the Descolada virus, furthur exploration of the natures
of the Pequeninos and Jane, all are great and deserve more focus
than this book offers. And there is the occasional brilliant moment
- Quim's fate, the Bishop's speech, and several others - these
are all pure Card, writing with the force of many of his other
books.
But it just isn't enough, at least not for me. This book was difficult
for me to finish both times I read it. As I go through it, I want
to say "but wait, if you do this as a progression from here
to here to here, this story would be so much more coherent."
My greatest hope for Xenocide is that one day Card will sit down and rewrite it as two or even three books. He really has a gap of about thirty years where Valentine and Miro are in transit which just seems to be lost, but during which several of the issues in this book could be dealt with in a far more interesting fashion (I'm just chomping at the bit to offer my ideas, but I'll lay off in the interests of keeping this review only moderately very long-winded).
This seems unlikely since the fourth book, Children of the
Mind, has already been published. But then again, with Card
you never know, and there is precedent - Ender's Game and many
other books he has written started out as short stories, so he
has shown a penchant for reworking earlier writing (and doing
it well). I can dream, can't I?
It makes me sad to see this book miss its potential so badly,
especially since there really is a tremendous amount of potential
there. I went on to read Children of the Mind (see below)
with almost as much trepidation as I have about the thought of
turning Ender's Game into a movie.
Children
of the MindI actually thought Children of the Mind
was significantly better on the whole than Xenocide, but still
fars fall short of both its own potential and certainly of the
behemoths that are Ender's Game and Speaker.
Children really is a completion of the trilogy forming Speaker, Xenocide, and itself, leaving Ender's Game as sort of the odd book out. It continues to deal with the issues brought about in Xenocide and fleshes them out, adding a couple of new ideas along the way. Once again, though, this book just isn't large enough to support its own weight.
There are some really interesting ideas about societies that are presented almost on the fly, and the two new worlds introduced, Divine Wind and Pacifica, are once again given far too little attention in the shadow of everything else, especially since they both seem to have so much to offer. It is interesting that the excellent afterward (see below) talks about the issues discussed by the characters on these worlds, and yet they really don't stand out when reading the book.
Ultimately Children of the Mind suffers the same fate as Xenocide, although the story seems to hold together better. There is just too much stuff going on, too many characters, too many problems and stories being told to ever feel like you get the thread of things. Both books have a feeling of impatience about them - if they were spread out over three or four individual books, paying more attention to some of the new characters and problems, they would be far better books and might even approach the lofty status of Speaker and Ender's Game.
One final point about this book - the afterword is fantastic. It is worth going to the bookstore and just reading the afterword, even if you have no intention of reading the book. Card is a very intelligent man with a passion for history and questions of social philosophy, and this afterword has some very interesting points which are only peripherally related to the book itself.
Ender's ShadowThis book certainly is an ambitious
one. It attempts to follow in the footsteps of one
of the greatest science fiction novels ever written.
More than that, it attempts to do so while essentially telling
the same story, but from a different perspective. Ender's
Shadow is written primarily from the point of view of Bean,
one of the significant minor characters of Ender's Game,
through roughly the same period of time as the original book.
A difficult task in the best of circumstances, made even more
so when one is following as incredible an act as Ender's Game.
So the question is, does Shadow live up to the original? Well, as you can see from the rating, my answer is: it's definitely not as good as Ender's Game, but it's still an enjoyable book.
I found myself swinging wildly back and forth in my opinion of the Shadow as I read it. The beginning is a bit weak, in my opinion, although some things make more sense in retrospect as you get further into the book. At times I found myself thinking that things revealed about Bean diminished Ender's character, and in some ways Bean's own character as presented in Ender's Game. Ultimately, however, I felt that the Bean in Ender's Shadow could very well have been the same character that we see in Ender's Game, with much more revealed about the intricacies of his life and mind.
I can't really decide how I feel about what is revealed about the events in Ender's Game, though, since they take on a very different light after reading Shadow, in some ways making Ender out to be something less than the ubermensch that he appears in Ender's Game. Maybe that isn't such a bad thing - I mean, nobody's perfect, even Ender Wiggin - but still, I found myself feeling that Ender was somehow diminished by Shadow, and that ultimately limited my enjoyment of the book.
One thing that I find I must differ from Card on - he states in the forward that you should be able to read either book independently of the other. I strongly disagree - you should read Ender's Game first. There are things in Shadow that really do assume some knowledge of the characters, places, and events in Ender's Game. Moreover (and maybe this is personal bias), since I really think that Ender's Game is by far the better book, it would be a shame to risk having it spoiled by reading Shadow first.
It is a very rare author who can write a continuing series with consistent brilliance (please see the next author for the only one that I can think of, offhand). Card I think suffers from the 'fire that burns twice as bright burns half as long' syndrome - the first books in a series are often so brilliant (as in Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead or the first three books of the Alvin Maker series) that the later books are made to seem all the more drab in comparison.
Ender's Shadow is a fun read, and I actually preferred it to either Xenocide or Children of the Mind, but overall, it still can't quite live up to the brilliance of the original two books.
I thought this book was lousy and
like other pieces of dreck I have been subjected to recently,
the closer I look at it the worse it looks. Card is becoming Piers
Anthony-esque in his ability to start with something good (and
here he's started at a far higher level than Anthony ever approached)
and just keep adding and adding until it starts to suck. I thought
the drop off was dramatic from Speaker
For The Dead to Xenocide,
and while this story is actually better than Xenocide,
that is not saying a whole lot. Card has done the same thing with
his Homecoming (interestingly my brain first told me this
series was Mission Earth) and Alvin
Maker series. Card needs to learn when to leave well enough
alone.
Heartfire -- Orson
Scott Card
Series currently contains 5 books: Seventh Son, Red
Prophet, Prentice Alvin, Alvin Journeyman, and
Heartfire. As far as I know, there is no expected end,
which is fine with me.
This series is one of the most original
set of fantasy novels that I have ever seen. The books are set
in an alternate version of colonial America, a world in which
folk magic is real. Again, as with all of Card's books, the characters
are extremely vivid and interesting, and the world itself is an
incredible one. The historical references are fascinating, and
the use of historical figures in different settings is very entertaining
and at times, brilliant.
I have actually just finished re-reading these, and I find them
to be just as excellent, if not more so, as the first time through.
The newest book, Alvin Journeyman, is definitely on par with the
first three, and I am very much looking forward to further books
in the series.
Memorable Quote: "The maker is the one who is part of what he makes..."
This series is
up to five books with the publication of Heartfire. I originally
gave the series a 10 rating,
and think the time has come to revise that. The first two books,
Seventh Son and Red Prophet, continue to deserve a 10.
The are original, intense, and wonderful. Since then Card has
hit a groove of excellent storytelling, but not brilliance at
the level I associate with a 10.
I will continue to read every Alvin story Card writes, and still
consider them to be the most original, and one of the best, fantasy
series ever written.
I think that I would probably have to
classify Orson Scott Card as my favorite contemporary Science
Fiction and Fantasy author. Although I have many authors that
I would rate very highly (and most of them appear somewhere on
this list), I don't think that there is anyone that I would recommend
over Card as a "must-read" for Science Fiction and Fantasy
aficionados alike.
Card has several other novels, which I have enjoyed to varying
degrees, probably my favorite of which is the Worthing Saga
. I wouldn't place it on the same par as either the Ender books
or the Alvin books, but it is very enjoyable nonetheless. However,
the one book (or set of books, depending on where you buy it)
that I would recommend probably as highly as both of the above
series' is his Maps In a Mirror. It is a book of short
stories, which is why it isn't included on the big list, but it
is filled with excellent writing, including the original "Ender's
Game" short story. My personal favorite is "The Bully
and The Beast" - a sort of fairy tale which, like all good
fairy tales, has some very deep elements of life truth in it.
A word of warning, some of the stories are downright disturbing
(not quite on the level of "I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream"
by Harlan Ellison, but close). However, I still would not hesitate
to recommend Maps In a Mirror as one of the best short
story collections out there.
Favorite Card Quote:
(Warning: If you intend to read Maps In a Mirror , this
may be a bit of a spoiler...)
The dragon's eyes went black, and the jaws opened again, and
the teeth approached, and Bork knew that he had told his last
lie, that this lie would be enough. But with the teeth inches
from him Bork finally realized what the lie was, and the realization
was enough to change his mind. "No," he said, and he
wept. "I have been happy. I have." And, gripping the
sharp teeth, the memories raced through his mind. The many nights
of comradeship with the knights in the castle. The pleasures of
weariness from working in the forest and the fields. The joy he
felt when alone he won a victory from the Duke; the rush of warmth
when the boy brought him the single fish he had caught; and the
solitary pleasures, of waking and going to sleep, of walking and
running, of feeling the wind on a hot day and standing near a
fire in the deep of winter. They were all good, and they had all
happened. What did it matter if later the knights despised him?
What did it matter if the villagers' love was only a fleeting
thing, to be forgotten after he died? The reality of the pain
did not destroy the reality of the pleasure; grief did not obliterate
joy. They each happened in their time, and because some of them
were dark it did not mean that none of them was light.
"I have been happy," Bork said. "And if you let
me live, I'll be happy again. That's what my life means, doesn't
it? That's the truth, isn't it dragon? My life matters because
I'm alive, joy or pain, whatever comes, I'm alive and that's meaning
enough."
- From "The Bully and the Beast"
I feel
a strange compulsion to augment Bjorn's comments with a couple
of my own. I concur with his opinion of Card. Few authors have
his ability to spin a wonderful tale which captivates you. But
Card's stories stick with you long after you've read them because
he writes about life, not fantasy. Having read one of Card's best
works, I find myself thinking about the story, the characters,
my life and the world around me. I love his stories, and even
as I am captivated, I learn from Card; and I can't think of any
higher praise.