ender's game

POSTED BY: est120
UPDATED: Thursday, October 21, 2004 04:34
VIEWED: 5895
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EST120

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 3:04 PM

has anyone read this book by orson scott card? a friend recently lent it to me and i finished it the other night. quite interesting. without revealing any plots for the other books, is the rest of the series worth a look?

DRALIONSOLEIL

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 3:15 PM

Ender's Shadow and Speaker for the Dead i think are definately worth it.

I read the first 3 sequels all at once a few years back but i think i only read xenocide and children of the mind for completeness sake.

i loved ender's shadow, but the rest of the shadow sequels were too political for me.

UNCHARTEDOUTLAW

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 4:53 PM

Yes! Ender's Game is an awesome book! I've actually read all the sequels...what is it, like 7? I really want to get Ender's Game added to our department's reading list. Definitely a very very good book.

-Taylor

Uncharted Outlaw!

Haulin' goods from one end of creation to th' other. Keepin' my nose clean 'round the Alliance. See my Firefly Store: http://www.cafepress.com/NorCalRiviera

SIGNYM

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 5:03 PM

I didn't think the others in the sequel had as much depth, although Speaker for the Dead good. He wrote a supernatural mystery thriller, though I can't remember the name, that I thought was awesome.

AMNESIACK

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 5:49 PM

Ender's Game is my favorite science fiction book of all time. I've read it 38 times since I bought my first copy at the age of 9. The question "Are the others worth it?" is a tricky one, though. If you want or expect them to be as good as Ender's Game, then, unfortunately, no they're not. Orson Scott Card has never managed to write anything else in his career as good as Ender's Game. However, if you're willing to let the comparison slide and just read them for their own sakes, ignoring the drop in quality, then, yes, they are worth reading.

------------------------------------------------
My backpack's got jets.

SHINY

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 6:43 PM

I thought ender's game was great, but the rest of the series and prequels/sequels were just pretty good. Definitely readable but they just don't compare to the genius of the original IMO.

Jayne, your mouth is talkin. Might want to look into that.

ZEEK

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 6:59 PM

Agreed. Ender's Game was great. Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and Ender's Shadow are the second tier. They're good but not great. Then Children of the Mind, Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets all fall to the final tier. Readable but just going too far off on a single tangent to be really good.

HJERMSTED

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 7:41 PM

I have enjoyed all of the Ender series, but my faves were Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead and Ender's Shadow.

I highly recommend O.S. Card's stand alone novel Treason as well!

mattro

DUG

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 8:16 PM

Just re-read the book last week, and got the wife to read it for the first time as well. I agree that it may well be Card's best work. Which is sad; it is a fleshed out version of his first short story. Peaked early, maybe? Actually no. Read Enchantment and Harts Hope. Both fantastic.

One thing that has always bugged me about Card (who I really like, btw) is his inability to EVER FINISH A FREAKIN' STORY. He writes it. Then he publishes it, changes it, republishes it, etc. Ender's Game is one example, started as a short, then grew to a novel, then I think may have been rewritten a bit to keep on as a series. The Alvin Maker series is a better example. Started as a one page poem. Became a short story. Then a novel. Then was supposed to be a trilogy. Then was supposed to be a NONOLOGY. At some point you just have to let go and be done. Hart's Hope is also a victim of this; originally published as a 90 page short novel and then sold as a full novel. In some ways the short was stronger. Self editing is not Card's strong point. Left to his own devices every book would be 10,000,000 pages long....

DESANGRO

Wednesday, October 20, 2004 8:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by est120:
has anyone read this book by orson scott card? a friend recently lent it to me and i finished it the other night. quite interesting. without revealing any plots for the other books, is the rest of the series worth a look?

I read Ender's Game a long, long time ago. I was very impressed with it at the time; it had aliens and a facist military and ultra-violent simulation games-- and real violence. (I did skip over some of the training program/mock combat programs because those parts bored me.)

The next book in the series that I read was Xenocide. I liked it, even though I was not up-to-date on some of the alien cultures in it (Xenocide is the THIRD book in the Ender series, BTW. Reading them in order is probably for the best.

) Then I read Speaker for the Dead and that not only cleared up my confusion, but was a pretty good read, to my memory.

Children of the Mind (the last book in the Ender series, though there are more novels set in that universe) didn't impress me as much. I read it once several years back and I haven't read it since. It seemed anticlimatic, though perhaps if I ever do re-read it, my analysis might be different.

Other than that, I haven't read Scott's other Ender's Game universe books, and I don't think that I've really read alot of the other things he's written. I will say that in the Ender's Game sequels he shows a great talent for creating several different and distinct alien races, and two very unique and interesting human cultures in Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide.

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