July 18, 2008 at 2:03 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
102. Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card (Science fiction) 358 p.
Sadly, Children of the Mind is the conclusion of the Ender quartet. Although OSC has two new Enderverse books planned (one of which, Ender in Exile, is due to be released on November 11), they are both set earlier in the timeline.
Card originally conceived of the stories told in Xenocide and Children of the Mind as one book, but realized that there was too much going on for just one novel (much as he did with Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets.) Writing two novels instead of one was undoubtedly the best option (and I’m not just saying that because I think two Card novels are better than one!), but it meant that the conlusion of Xenocide was a little weak, because the true resolution of the threads started there had to wait for the end of Children of the Mind. And not just plot threads–a lot of character development hadn’t reached a good stopping place by the end of Xenocide, by which I mean that a lot of annoying characters were running around unchecked.
As I said, Children of the Mind is not so much a sequel as a continuation of Xenocide, and any summary of its events will necessarily contain spoilers for that novel. I did like it much better than Xenocide, not so much because it was a superior novel, but because for the most, none of the characters got on my nerves. It was a much less frustrating read.
Now that I’ve finished both the Bean quartet and the Ender quartet, I’m not really sure which I liked better. The Bean books had more action and more sweeping consequences, while the Ender books felt quieter, more thoughtful, more focused on ideas and discovery. Children of the Mind definitely has a lot of ideas to chew over; even the ones I don’t agree with are interesting to think about.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Pages read: ?
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Cardathon Challenge Redux, Ender quartet, Enderverse, Orson Scott Card
July 18, 2008 at 9:18 am · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
100. Red Prophet by Orson Scott Card (Historical fantasy) ? p.
In this book, Card continues to tell the story of Alvin Maker, a young White boy who is more than he seems, with a magic beyond what anyone has seen, and an implacable enemy to go with it. The Tales of Alvin Maker is about more than its titular character, though–with this series, Card has set out to create a fantasy grounded in pioneer America, rather than medieval Europe. In this process, he’s created an alternate history and a rich mythology, full of magic and wonder. Red Prophet is less about Alvin Maker than it is about Tecumseh and the Battle of Tippecanoe–or at least, the versions of them that exist in this series.
So far, this is a great series, one that has some wonderful stories in it. I think, though, that those stories would likely resonate more with actual Americans, who presumably know and care more about American history than I do. (An alternate Canada appears in this book, but it’s so different from the real Canada, and so peripheral to the story, that it doesn’t interest me in any particular way.)
Card gives his characters distinct speech patterns and accents, which was a little jarring for the first few pages. Once I got used to that, though, it helped make the story come alive. And that’s one of the best things about this series–all the stories are alive in the way that all really good myths and legends are alive.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pages read: ?
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, A ~ Z Reading Challenge, Cardathon Challenge Redux, Orson Scott Card, Tales of Alvin Maker
July 11, 2008 at 12:44 am · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
99. Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card (Science fiction) 367 p.
This is the last book in the Bean quartet, following Ender’s Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, and Shadow Puppets. I’m having trouble putting together a coherent reaction to this book: on one hand, there were some things in it that annoyed me, and others that I would have liked to be different; on the other hand, I loved this book.
There’s no point in writing a detailed summary of this book, since if you haven’t read the previous three, it won’t mean much, and if you have, you don’t need my summary to convince you to read it. Maybe it’s enough to say that this is the story of an attempt to unite Earth under one government, to build a world where everyone can live in peace. It’s also the story of some extraordinarily intelligent people who are involved in that struggle, on both sides of the issue. And of course, it’s the story of Bean, who doesn’t have much time left on Earth.
That, actually, is where I had my first problem. This series is about Bean, but as world events heated up throughout the books, we saw less and less of him. Ender’s Shadow was told almost entirely from Bean’s perspective, and hardly a page went by that we didn’t see what he was thinking or feeling. I really missed that intimate point of view in Shadow of the Giant. I like Bean best when I can see inside his head, and this book didn’t give me that chance.
It isn’t just Bean whose thoughts and emotions I would have liked to read about; even when Card gave us a glimpse inside a character’s head in this book, it was usually all tactical, strictly related to whatever crisis was happening at the time. I really felt the lack of a true understanding of that characters, especially Peter.
It’s kind of an obscure point, but I was a little annoyed by the IF’s policy of creating deliberately monocultural colonies. Actually, more than annoyed; it made me kind of angry. I suppose, having grown up in one of the most multicultural cities on Earth, I’m prejudiced in favour of that model; I think the worst thing for any culture is to be isolated from contact with all others. Sure, the colonists can learn about other cultures, languages, and religions over the ansible, but none of them will live with anyone who believes in those things.
I don’t want to complain too much about Shadow of the Giant, because I really did take pleasure in every moment I spent reading it. I’m so glad I got to see Peter through the eyes of other people, and that he isn’t the monster he was through Ender’s six-year-old eyes. In fact, I wish I could see more of Peter’s story.
Show spoilers
Warning: spoiler ahead!
My roommate laughed yesterday when I asked her whether Petra would marry Bean or Peter (but only because I knew she wouldn’t tell me)–I’d been thinking it would be Bean, but he was kind of young, and then there was Peter–and she kind of laughed and asked what book I was reading, and I said I was halfway through
Shadow of the Hegemon. And now I know why she laughed. And that was another thing I loved about this book, this series.
End spoiler
I was feeling obliged to rate this book 9/10, because there were ways I thought it could have been better, but I still wanted to give it a 10. And isn’t that what these reviews are about? Not some kind of objective measure, weighing faults against virtues, but just a way of sharing how much I loved a book, or didn’t. And I loved this one.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Pages read: 29,479
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Bean quartet, Cardathon Challenge Redux, Enderverse, Orson Scott Card
July 10, 2008 at 5:12 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
98. Shadow Puppets by Orson Scott Card (Science fiction) 372 p.
With China now controlling much of Asia and the power of the Hegemon severely diminished, Peter Wiggin decides that using an old enemy would be a good idea, as long as he can keep him under control.
One of the biggest disappointments about Orson Scott Card’s writing, for me, is that I rarely find his characters as likable when they grow up as I did when they were children. Both his male and female characters tend to take on very traditional gender roles as they grow, if not in the way they act, in the way they relate to each other and in the way they think. It makes them a little less sympathetic to me, and also less plausible. It didn’t spoil my enjoyment of this book, but it means I’m not surprised that I enjoyed this book a little less than Ender’s Shadow and Shadow of the Giant.
This book picks up pretty much where Shadow of the Giant left off; the two books were originally intended to be one story, but Card divided it in two and expanded it. I’m glad he did, because I enjoyed both books immensely, but I also think it was something of a mistake. Having Achilles as they main villain in one book works well. Having him continue through two books makes the main cast look like idiots. In fact, in order for Achilles to gain enough power to be a threat once again, they have to act like idiots.
Show spoilers
Warning: spoiler ahead!
Peter Wiggin takes the chance of liberating Achilles from the Chinese, even knowing everything he’s done and everything he’s accomplished…but why? He sets him up as an official assistant to the Hegemon…why? It’s never very clear what Peter is hoping to accomplish by giving Achilles power. What is it that he think Achilles can or will do for him that’s worth taking any risk at all? Granted, he believes (erroneously) that he can keep Achilles from causing harm to him, but what exactly is that he expect Achilles to
help him with?
Also, it’s extremely strange that he gives Achilles an official position. Achilles is the man who he himself exposed as a serial killer and escapee from a detention facility for the criminally insane. All the main characters seem to take the position that nothing official can be done to stop Achilles, because they don’t have the law on their side. But they do–Achilles was never released from detention, he was broken out by Russian forces.
I could see Peter being blinded enough by a particular ambition that he ignores the advice of every single person whose intelligence he respects–of, in fact, every single ally he has–in order to gain something from Achilles, but since he doesn’t seem to have any particular plan in mind, his behaviour is just too arrogant to be believable.
End spoiler
The best parts of Shadow Puppets are those which are only loosely connected to Achilles, like the war, and especially the parts from Virlomi’s perspective, in India, and the sections about the fighting itself. Even the Achilles thread, although not as tightly-plotted as I would expect from Card, results in some well-written character developement for Peter and Bean.
I think I would have found the Bean and Petra thread much more suspenseful and moving if I believed that human life begins at conception, but I don’t. I was still interested, but probably not to the degree another reader might have been.
Still, even though I didn’t like it as much as its prequels, Shadow Puppets is still an excellent read.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pages read: 29,112
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Bean quartet, Cardathon Challenge Redux, Enderverse, Orson Scott Card
July 9, 2008 at 11:34 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
97. Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card (Science fiction) 442 p.
This is yet another winner from Orson Scott Card. I found it less plausible than some of his other novels, but the story was so good and so well-written that I didn’t care.
In this sequel to Ender’s Shadow, the war with the Formics is over, and the nations of Earth are ready to go back to fighting each other. The students from Battle School become a valuable resource ripe for exploitation by any nation or power able to control them, so it’s no surprise when ten of the eleven children who were Ender’s lieutenants are kidnapped by an unknown power. Bean does what he can to secure the release of the others, but he needs help from Peter Wiggin, who wants something from him in return–help with his plan to take over the world.
Shadow of the Hegemon is a fun book, without a dull moment in it. Watching all the Battle School kids plot and manipulate world affairs was great. One of the things I’ve always liked about Card’s writing is that his characters come from many different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, from many different countries, and that’s especially true in the Enderverse. It’s very refreshing to read a science fiction writer who doesn’t seem to make everyone a white American by default, throwing in a token minority when the plot demands it.
The plot of this book also gives Card a chance to show off his knowledge of global politics, history, and geography. I can’t comment on the accuracy or plausibility of most of it, but some of the things he says in his afterword make it clear that he’s researched the topic, and given it a great deal of thought.
So far, I’m enjoying this series as much, or even more, than than the Ender series. I hope the last two books are as good as the first two!
Rating: 10 out of 10
Pages read: 28,740
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Bean quartet, Cardathon Challenge Redux, Enderverse, Orson Scott Card
July 9, 2008 at 7:23 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
96. Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card (Science fiction) 467 p.
Ender’s Shadow can be read as a standalone novel, but it’s intended as a companion to Ender’s Game and as the first in the Bean sequence of Enderverse novels. Bean was the greatest of all Ender’s lieutenants, but we saw relatively little of him in Ender’s Game, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from this novel, which is partly a retelling of the events of that book, but from Bean’s point of view.
Growing up an orphan on the streets of Rotterdam, never even given a name until he is four years old, Bean wants nothing more than to survive, and maybe to have enough food to eat and a safe place to sleep. Even his formidable intelligence can’t make up for his youth and small size, so when he gets the chance to go to Battle School, he takes it.
At first, some of Bean’s history seemed implausible, but it quickly became apparent that there would be an explanation, which turns out to be one of the more interesting ideas in the book. (And Card’s science fiction ideas, even when they’re impractical or implausible in the real world, are always fascinating to think about and explore.)
Seeing Ender and the Battle School through Bean’s eyes was a revelation, because Bean has a far more analytical mind than Ender does, and far less trust in institutions. Where Ender might occasionally rebels against a system, when he feels his trust has been violated, Bean will never fully buy into that system in the first place, which gives him a unique perspective, combining both an insider’s and an outsider’s point of view.
I also just plain liked Bean. Some of his interactions with the Battle School staff, namely Dimak and Graff, were hilarious (as is pretty much every conversations Graff has with anyone. I love Graff, and I hope to see more of him later in the series.) His background is so tragic that the story could easily have been maudlin or sentimental, but Bean has no self-pity in him, and his personality defies it in others.
As I said at the beginning, this book can be read alone, but you’ll get much more out of it if you read Ender’s Game first. (Also, this book contains a number of spoilers for Ender’s Game, less in terms of plot (though there are some) than in terms of character development.)
I’m so glad I tried Orson Scott Card’s books, because missing out on them would have been a huge loss, even though I would never have known it. Ender’s Shadow is about as close to a perfect science fiction novel as any I’ve ever read!
Rating: 10 out of 10
Pages read: 28,298
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Bean quartet, Cardathon Challenge Redux, Chunkster Challenge 2008, Enderverse, Orson Scott Card
July 9, 2008 at 6:56 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
95. Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card (Historical fantasy) 241 p.
More than anything else, Seventh Son has reminded me how compulsively readable Orson Scott Card can be. I’ve been finding the Homecoming series a little slow going, but this book displays all Card’s talent, without the undertone of malice that dims my enjoyment of those books.
In a pioneer America that never was, a land where magic abounds and where history has developed a little differently from the history we know, a seventh son is born to a man who is himself a seventh son. Naturally, he possesses unique powers, but he is also in danger from many enemies, some in some unlikely places.
This book felt very much like the first in a series. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since there are six more books to follow. Seventh Son is a good, solid read, but without the passion and flare to match up to Ender’s Game or Ender’s Shadow, say. What it does do is some nice world-building and characterization, a steady foundation for the rest of the series. If they live up to the potential hinted at in this book, I’m going to enjoy this series very much indeed.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pages read: 27,831
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Cardathon Challenge Redux, Orson Scott Card, Tales of Alvin Maker
July 8, 2008 at 9:43 am · Filed under Book Reviews, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
94. The Ships of Earth by Orson Scott Card (Science fiction) 351 p.
This is the third book in the Homecoming series, following The Memory of Earth and The Call of Earth. In it, Card continues the story of Nafai and his family as they start their journey across the desert, following the call of the Oversoul to the place where they will embark on the trip to Earth.
Card, who is himself a Mormon, uses stories from the Book of Mormon as the basis for this series. It’s one of the most interesting things about the books, but it’s also one of the things that makes the series less enjoyable to read–for me, at least. I have no experience with the Book of Mormon, but the story feels Biblical, both in the themes underlying the story and in the behaviour of the characters.
Simply put, most of the characters in Homecoming are seriously unpleasant. Their behaviour is disgusting and their thoughts are repellent, and in a way that makes me assume that Card is being faithful to the original source. This works for me on one level, since it makes the story seem more religious and significant. On the other hand, I hate reading about nasty people. I’d rather read about characters who are more straightforwardly evil than the kind of petty, grinding selfishness and ambition that drives most of the Homecoming characters. Card does a great job of making them believable as real people, but that doesn’t make them any more attractive.
There are a few characters that I like in this series (Luet, Zdorab, and possibly Hushidh are the only ones I have no reservations about, but Nafai, Isseb, and Shedemei are okay, too), and there were a few goods scenes I really enjoyed reading, but by and large the story was driven by conflict between the characters, which is why I had to take a two-month break in the middle.
As always, Card’s writing is awesome, even when I don’t love the people he’s writing about. I have reservations about the way he treats gender relations and homosexuality in this book, but for the most part I’m willing to accept that the characters would believe the things they do and behave the way they do, even those things with which I vehemently disagree. There are a few statements made about homosexuality that were strange even in the context of the story, but since I knew going in that Card and I have quite different views on the issue, they didn’t impede the flow the story for me.
There were a few other annoyances, mostly things that happened to be pet peeves, but as usual, Card’s skill as an author kept me reading and enjoying the story, even when I didn’t like the direction it was taking. All in all, this was a very good book that happens not to be to my personal taste.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pages read:27,590
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Cardathon Challenge Redux, Homecoming, Orson Scott Card
July 7, 2008 at 4:22 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
93. First Meetings by Orson Scott Card (Science fiction, short story collection) 208 p.
Twenty-five years after the first publication of “Ender’s Game”, it was re-published in this collection, along with three new short stories set in the same universe. The first two stories are prequels of sorts, starring Ender’s father as a child and as a young man, and the last in the collection is an Ender story set between Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead.
The collection is a thematic one, the stories tied together by featuring some of the important first meetings between various characters in the series. It’s a link that seems tenuous but works surprisingly well, since part of the fun of each of the stories is that we, the readers, already know how these new relationships are going to turn out, which gives the stories a similar feel even when they have very different moods.
The only exception to this is “Ender’s Game” itself, which isn’t really a first meeting story, although it does include Ender’s first encounters with two very important people (and was itself many people’s first meeting with Ender.) It’s okay that it doesn’t completely fit in with the other stories–it isn’t just another short story set in the Enderverse, so its inclusion in the collection doesn’t really need any justification.
The Polish Boy
At the age of five, John Paul Wiggin has his first meeting with the man who will shape his family’s lives. This is a fun story, and the one which is closest in feel to “Ender’s Game”, focussing as it does on Ender’s father as a boy. I’m particularly fond of Card when he writes from the perspective of young children, especially brilliant ones like John Paul or Ender.
It was also nice to get an explanation for the unusual interest displayed in Ender’s family later on, which I found a bit strange when I read Ender’s Game. It reaffirms my faith in Card that he was able to produce a valid reason for it–it’s a minor plot thread, but I’m glad it wasn’t left dangling.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Teacher’s Pest
John Paul Wiggin, now a university student–and a rather arrogant and obnoxious one, at that–meets Theresa Brown, his future wife, when he is enrolled in a class that she’s teaching. I started out not liking John Paul is this story; his superior intellectual abilities, though they partly justified his attitude toward the class, in no way excused the way he was planning to behave. His reaction to Theresa was endearing, though, and a character with a vulnerability is much easier to care about, so I ended by enjoying the story much more than I expected.
This story, along with The Polish Boy, illuminated a number of things about Ender’s family life in a relatively short amount of space. For example, John Paul’s and Theresa’s own family backgrounds, and John’s Paul intellectual arrogrance, went a long way toward explaining how they managed to produce a son like Peter.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Ender’s Game (original novella)
“Ender’s Game” originally appeared as a novella in Analog in 1977. Card expanded it and published it as a novel in 1985, and it’s as a novel that most people are familiar with Ender’s Game. I picked up a remaindered copy of this collection for $2, because I’d heard a lot about Ender’s Game and wanted to read it. And of course I couldn’t resist reading the novella first, even though I was worried it would spoil the experience of reading the novel. As it turned out, my fears were totally groundless; it really doesn’t matter which you read first. Essentially, both version tell the story of Ender Wiggin, a brilliant boy who is in military training sometime in the near(ish) future, and of humanity’s war with the first alien species it has ever encountered.
It’s funny, but when I re-read “Ender’s Game” today, I realized for the first time just how many things in it are different from the novel. Card didn’t just expand the novella when he transformed it into a novel, he re-wrote it and made many small but telling changes. For example, “Ender’s Game” is a novel which includes no women, not particularly surprising for a short piece of Military SF written in the 1970’s. Ender’s Game, however, contains several important female characters, two of whom are absolutely critical to the story Card tells in the novel, which is not quite the same story as the one he told in the novella. Likewise, Ender is given a family and a psychological history that are quite different to the one off-handedly mentioned in “Ender’s Game”, and the nature of humanity’s enemy, and the war being fought, is startlingly different.
All these changes are for the better. Without disparaging the novella in any way–because it is, without question, among the best short pieces of science fiction ever written–there was not one change made in it’s transformation into a novel that was not for the better. Given that, I think it’s a testament to the quality of “Ender’s Game” that even though the novel is superior, the novella is still an entertaining and absorbing story that is worth anyone’s time–even if that someone has already read Ender’s Game.
Rating: 10 out of 10
The Investment Counselor
An avaricious accountant’s attempt to blackmail Ender is foiled by his new investment software, a helpful, human-like program called Jane.
This is by far the weakest story in this collection, but in a way that isn’t primarily Card’s fault. Unfortunately, the story depends on a lot of background material from the novel Ender’s Game. Since that material isn’t in the novella, “The Investment Counselor” has to summarize a great deal of information about Ender and Valentine that anyone who has read the novel will already know. This story is the most frivolous in the collection, and it’s simply too light to carry the weight of so much exposition–it isn’t worth giving so many explanations in order to tell what is essentially a joke.
Card is certainly talented enough to have found a more graceful way of weaving the necessary backstory into this tale, but it would have lengthened it considerably and been more effort than the story itself is worth–not to mention that it would have been a rehashing of the same material Card did a beautiful job of presenting in Ender’s Game. Frankly, I think Card should have cut most of the exposition and let the story be dependent on Ender’s Game. (Since it first appeared in an anthology, I understand why he didn’t, but it still diminishes the quality of the story.)
Ender’s encounters with Jane were delightful, but the story glossed over the serious events–the near-exposure of Ender’s identity, which would certainly have been fatal for both him and Valentine, and the fate of Benedetto–so fast that I hardly had time to take them in. The tone of the story was very light, but a lot of the events in it weren’t, almost as if Card didn’t understand their significance, which I don’t believe for a second. All in all, a very odd little story, far rougher in its execution than I’ve ever seen from Card before, but still a good read.
Rating: 7 out of 10
It’s a shame that First Meetings ends on a weak note, but the quality of the first three stories is such that it doesn’t matter much. Even the book itself is quite attractive, a nice little hardcover with a decent cover. The inside is even better, with lots of fun, quirky illustrations by Craig Phillips, and a better font and layout than any other Ender book I’ve read (including the 20th anniversary hardcover edition of Ender’s Game, which has a great cover but an unattractive interior.)
This collection will have limited appeal to anyone who hasn’t read Ender’s Game, but I urge anyone who loves that book to pick up a copy of this collection: these stories shouldn’t be missed by any Ender fan! And if you haven’t read Ender’s Game, go out a get a copy right away–it’s certainly the most entertaining, well-written, thought-provoking, and emotionally honest work of science fiction I’ve ever read, and very accessible even to non-SF fans.
Overall rating: 9 out of 10 (10 out of 10 for the first three quarters)
Pages read:27,239
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Cardathon Challenge Redux, Enderverse, Orson Scott Card, short story collection
April 30, 2008 at 3:16 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
68. The Call of Earth by Orson Scott Card (Science fiction) 332 p.
This is the second volume of Card’s Homecoming, and it takes up right where The Memory of Earth leaves off. Wetchik and his sons are still in the desert, but another dream sent from the Oversoul sends them back to the city for something else they need: women. Specifically, wives for each of them. Meanwhile, the general of a great empire is eyeing Basilica, and it may not be possible to stop his plans for the city.
I liked this book better than its prequel, mostly because the main protagonist, Nafai, started to grow up and develop as a character, and so became far more likable. Luet and her sister also became more prominent, and they, along with Nafai and Isseb, are my favourite characters.
I’m always impressed at how Card, even when he’s telling a story that carries a message, never reduces it to a mere vehicle for that message. His characters may be prophets, maybe be moral failures or moral heroes, but they’re always human beings first. My absolute favourite scene in the book is the wedding night, because whatever else Nafai is, he’s still a fourteen-year-old virgin. One with a good sense of humour.
I’m glad I bought the first three volumes of the series at once, and now I only wish I had all five!
Pages read: 19,635
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, A ~ Z Reading Challenge, Cardathon Challenge Redux, Homecoming, Orson Scott Card
Older entries »
