(no subject)
I had read the original short-story soon after it came out. I liked it enough
to remember it, but one way or another, I had never read the novel till now.
I don't think I'll be reading the other books in the series. I don't know
how many reports, term paper and (probably) theses have been written about
the book. I'm not likely to come up with anything new.
Mostly it seemed like self-serving wish fulfillment. The "ordinary" people
will hate and fear "us" -- the truely gifted -- because we are better. You
can't trust anyone in authority, they are all just using "us".
In a way, it is classic YA fiction. Youth put in a hard situation. Has
self-doubts, doesn't think anyone is on his side. Wins friends and eventually
saves the day. Less classically, the message doesn't appear to be about
learning to trust or the importance of communities, or about making hard
choices. It is about justifications for lack of trust, about the need for
leaders to be isolated, about manipulation and a celebration of ends over means.
Maybe the ending sets up for a refutation of those ideas in the next book(s),
but it doesn't seem likely and I may never know.
This is just a drop copy. The original is at Ender's Game -- Orson Scott Card. Comments are disabled here.