Just finished reading “Ender’s Game,” a fascinating and intense book recommended by my friend Lisa. It’s about a future society training kids to be military commanders to fight an alien menace. There’s great stuff about the military mindset, along with “ahead of their time” concepts like online identities. Also, anyone who felt “different” in any way growing up should identify with the protagonist, Ender.
I found a lot of stuff in the book eerily appropriate for the times today, especially the idea of fighting an unending war against a mysterious, unseen enemy.
“You watch. It’s all a fake. There is no war, and they’re just screwing around with us.”
“But why?”
“Because as long as people are afraid of the buggers, the I.F. can stay in power, and as long as the I.F. is in power, certain countries can keep their hegemony. But keep watching the vids, Ender. People will catch onto this game pretty soon, and there’ll be a civil war to end all wars. That’s the menace, Ender, not the buggers.”
An excellent book, and you’re correct, very apt to the times. Honestly, I’m quite surprised you hadn’t already read it. If you enjoyed it as much as it seems, I’d highly suggest you read “Ender’s Shadow,” the contemporary book that focuses on Bean. It gives the story even more dimension.
I saw it on your table and though to ask if you’d read it before, but I assumed you had.
There was also a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that we’d already had that conversation and I’d simply forgotten it.
Oh wait, I have nothing to say. Damn.
Great book. Make sure to read the next one, Speaker for the Dead. It follows Ender as an adult and is partly about him living with the knowledge that he… well, I shouldn’t spoil it for people who haven’t read Ender’s Game. But you know what I mean.
That one sounds better than the book about Bean. Maybe I’ll check it out.
While “Ender’s Game” is indeed a great book, apparently we readers of the book have found much more meaning in it than author Orson Scott Card intended. Among other things, he has said that the follow-up, “Speaker for the Dead,” was the one he really wanted to write (“Ender’s Game” was apparently a necessary prologue for the story he truly wanted to tell.) He also stated that people misread some of the ideas and/or characters/events in “Ender’s Game” for his own opinions. It sounds rather strange, like a literary denial, until you realize that Mr. Card is, indeed, a “militaristic Mormon.”
http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/card/print.html
How very disappointing.
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Oh, yeah, I forgot that I wanted to point out how they got the children to wipe out the ‘buggers’ altogether: no more faggots! So, so sad.
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That Salon interview was quite a letdown the first time I read it. However since I have never seen anything in his actual writing that is offensive, and he could have been overreacting to the interviewer asking a hot-button question, I won’t let it stop me from appreciating the positive messages in his writing – if he intended them or not.
That said, I am very let down with him for what he has let happen to the line of books about Bean. They started out great, but the last one was so bad that I couldn’t even finish it. And don’t get me started on how he took the amazing start of his Alvin Maker books and ruined it by churning out crap after the first 3 or so.
Anyway, Speaker for the Dead has a great message about understanding, atonement, and cultural differences. Don’t miss that one.
Wow. What, as Xkot said, a disappointment that Salon article is.
I’ll agree with him again when I say that I’ve never found anything blatantly offensive in his writing, and Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead are two of my favorite books… the latter especially is fascinating, with an additional anthrpological/scientific element worked in that just amazes me every time I read it.
I keep thinking of Yeats’ “how do you tell the dancer from the dance,” and wonder if I’ll have a bad taste in my mouth next time I go to read any of his works. I’m almost glad the “sequels” to Ender’s Game have been dry and totally unsatisfying.
All I can say is, I thought that you would like it. I’ll go to bed happy now.
there is no such thing as a war to end all wars
If I couldn’t appreciate works by creators who were in some way morally reprehensible in their personal lives, I couldn’t appreciate works, period.
The important part of the article was how little of the message of his book Orson Scott Card seems to get. It’s unintentional genius is baffling.
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Ugh. Its. Not it’s. Dammit.
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I go now.