Regarding Ender's Game...

[Guest Suicide King]

Did anyone else enjoy Ender's Shadow more? Not that the original was bad or anything, but I guess I always just liked Ender's little sidekick more.

[Guest gthureson]

I just finished Ender's Shadow not too long ago, and I finally stumbled upon what has bothered me about both books.

 

I never buy that any of the characters are actually kids. Yes, they are geniuses and being trained to be commanders of soldiers at a young age....but they never actually act like kids. Occassionally someone cries. But they all behave with a maturity and an outlook that implies prior experience, which they shouldn't have, despite their brilliance and intellect.

 

Not saying that they aren't good books, but unless I'm reminded by Scott Card of their age, I always picture them being in their late teens at the earliest.

 

With that out of the way, Ender's Game was the better book in my opinion. Bean is a good secondary character, but as a lead, he is too unsympathetic.

[Guest J*ingus]

Let me first say that Ender's Game is one of my favorite books of all time. Having gotten that out of the way, no, I don't think Ender's Shadow quite lives up to it. For one thing, a lot of the stuff about Bean actually being the 2nd choice for the fleet leader, being held there to take over in case Ender breaks down, it just doesn't ring right. Nothing in the first book even suggests or hints about anything like that, Bean is just another brilliant kid in a whole group of them. It felt like Card was ret-conning his story to make the new book fit.

[Guest The Metal Maniac]

First off: I perfer Ender's Game, because as far as I'm concerned, it's the best book ever.

 

Anyway, I tend to feel the same way about the kids - they don't come across as kids. But then again, I suppose it's very plausible - a kid can only act like a kid if they're raised to know what a kid does. These kids were obviously raised in a very different environment then kids in our society are (even before the battle school - I'm assuming the monitors would heavily affect your upbringing) so really, they're a product of their environment. It just so happens that's not the kind of environment a kid should be raised in.

 

Also, I don't see why Ender's Game should have mentioned Bean as the runner-up. The majority of the book is written based on what Ender knows - Yes, there are the conversations at the start of each chapter that Ender couldn't have heard, and yes, there's the sections with Valentine and Peter which he couldn't have known, BUT, outside of that, I think essentially everything is known to the reader only as it's known to Ender. Hell, I don't even think you find that

Spoiler (Highlight to Read):

Bonzo is actually dead

until the end of the book. No one told Ender when it happened - they lied about it, so the reader must assume the same.

 

The same thing applies to Bean. No one ever told Ender that Bean was being trained like that. They couldn't - like they said, they had to make Ender believe that there was no help for him, ever. So it would have been kept totally secret from Ender. I do however, agree that Card invented that story just for Ender's Shadow, and had never planned anything like it beforehand.

 

That's how I see it, anyways.

 

So...what did you people think of the rest of the Ender Saga/Shadow Books? I thought Speaker for the Dead was good, but Xenocide and Children of the Mind are too much talking, not enough stuff happening. And he gets REALLY silly with the philioties (sp?).

 

I wasn't a huge fan of Shadow of the Hegemon either.

[Betty Houle 0]

I love ENDER'S GAME; I've read it about 10 times.

 

Never read ENDER'S SHADOW so I can't make a comparison. The only other Orson Scott Card I have read is SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD (good book) and some of his short stories.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Christ, how'd I miss a thread started by King about one of my favorite books?

 

I love Ender's Shadow and tore through it nearly as quickly as Ender's Game, but I don't think it's as good as the original. In my opinion Card never wrote anything better than Ender's Game, except perhaps the amazing and oft-overlooked The Worthing Saga. Game is much thicker in its themes than Ender's Shadow, and while retelling stuff from Bean's perspective is really interesting, I think Card plays too much with his own mythology and actually dilutes some of the original's impact by having Bean be responsible for a lot of Ender's successes.

 

In any case, I think that anyone who has any doubts or fears about the way the United States handles foreign policy these days should re-read Ender's Game to get some more salient thoughts on the subject and hopefully further explore their own thoughts. I honestly think this book should be required reading in middle school, again in high school, and again in college. I would consider it one of the few masterpieces written in the last thirty years.

 

Also, let me again reiterate my wanton praise and recommendation of The Worthing Saga. The short stories at the back of the collection are average, but the actual full-length itself is astonishing. It's right up there with Ender, A Scanner Darkly, and The Left Hand Of Darkness as some of the most stunning and profound science fiction I've ever read, the sort of stuff that transcends the medium and the stereotypes of the genre. EVERYONE should read all of these at some point in their life, or they're really missing out.

[thuganomics 0]

Ender's Shadow pales in comparison to the original. I love almost everything Card has done, but his recent Bean series has been rather dull and derivative.

 

Just about any of his other books are better.

 

Word Life!

Ahl