*Spoiler Alert!!!*
Okay so this is a big spoiler, but I have to organize my thoughts on the subjects. Should you not want the story ruined for you, by chance that you may read it someday, then by no means continue reading this journal entry. If you don't care that the story is ruined, or that you have no intent to read the books, but for some reason decide to read this entry, well then read on. Also I may note that this is going to take awhile and ideas may skip back and forth, but that is just how I am so please bare with me.
So anyways I finished reading Ender's Shadow. It isn't a sequel to Ender's Game so you could technically read it before or after reading Ender's Game or at the same time if you are ambitious enough. I chose to read the four books in Ender's Game and then the four books in the Ender's Shadow series, since they fit together. Children of the Mind actually has nothing really to do with Ender itself either, but it goes with the Ender's series. Some strange events happen in Xenocide causing the recreation of Valentine and Peter Wiggin, but since Valentine already exist she is called young Valentine. However, these creations contain no aiua of their own but share Ender's aiua. In turn in Children they are the focus of the books since they are doing most of the work to save the planet. Ender therefore becomes a blip to the plotline except for the fact that his aiua can't contain three bodies at once and then one body would slowly start dying. It was sad because in the end, Ender gave his life for Peter and Valentine, and Novinha had to give him up in order for him to save all of his bodies so his aiua could live on. Well his aiua lives fully in Peter, and part of Jane's aiua lives in the body of young Val as well as the mother trees and ansibles. Long story which I couldn't even begin to retell. Well what makes me mad is that once the planet is saved and faster than lightspeed travel is reestablished to be used from now on the book is over. Well I want to know what happens to Peter and Si Wang Mu and Jane and Miro and the descaladores. You cannot end a book finding the home planet of the descolada virus and not tell us what happens after. I hope Orson has a plan for that one.
Now in Shadow we go back to when Ender was a child, and the book also isn't really about him in anyway other than the fact that he is the object of worship for a child called Bean. What I love about the book is it gives insight into Ender from a perspective that is not his own. Granted the text at the beginning from an outside source is still there, but naturally the book revolves around Ender so any ideas of what Ender is like seem to come from himself. Bean gives an accurate account of Ender from another view point. I say Bean's account is accurate because of his genetic alteration that allows him deep insights into people. Unfortunately this alteration will be his death as we learn that the scientist who did this found the gene that makes idiot savants, savants and switched it on in a normal person. As the book explains it, the reason savants are delayed elsewhere is because their minds could not contain a normal person's thinking, it would be overload. This is what Bean is experiencing. Because the gene is unlocked he will remember everytning and be as quick as a whip but he will continue to grow and eventually die from organ failure. Sadness for the price of intelligence. The book gives an excellent religious observation though that is worth sharing. When the scientist was explaining that the more we know the faster we die he explained it using the tree of knowledge. He said to have vast amounts of knowledge is to have a short lived life. He even uses the flood as an example. After the flood people lived shorter lives. Sister Carlotta retorts then why are people living so long nowadays, trying to discount his theory. The scientist reply being exactly. However, her point was the fact that we have so much information and knowledge and we are living longer anyways. Perhaps this was even the attitude of people before the flood, afterall they did jeer at Noah thinking they knew so much more than him and that the sky would not pour water.
Clearly Orson's point was that we have so much knowledge today that we think we are gods in and of ourselves, and things that are becoming norms of our society are not Godly. We have so much technical information but we don't know the difference between good and evil which truly was the knowledge that Adam and Eve gained by eating the fruit. I take that back, we do individually know the difference, but as society we don't. So for us to be living longer makes sense, we are becoming as we were before the fall of man. The difference between not knowing now and not knowing before the fall of man what sin is, is that we should know what sin is, and because we should know we are going to pay for it. Heh--sorry religious kick. But these ideas are in Orson's books, and permeate most of his novels. He is in fact Mormon and will not deny his beliefs. So naturally Christian ideas of good and evil will be in his novels. That is partly why I like reading Orson. Anyways, like I said, I had to write down some of these ideas! Happy reading!.
So anyways I finished reading Ender's Shadow. It isn't a sequel to Ender's Game so you could technically read it before or after reading Ender's Game or at the same time if you are ambitious enough. I chose to read the four books in Ender's Game and then the four books in the Ender's Shadow series, since they fit together. Children of the Mind actually has nothing really to do with Ender itself either, but it goes with the Ender's series. Some strange events happen in Xenocide causing the recreation of Valentine and Peter Wiggin, but since Valentine already exist she is called young Valentine. However, these creations contain no aiua of their own but share Ender's aiua. In turn in Children they are the focus of the books since they are doing most of the work to save the planet. Ender therefore becomes a blip to the plotline except for the fact that his aiua can't contain three bodies at once and then one body would slowly start dying. It was sad because in the end, Ender gave his life for Peter and Valentine, and Novinha had to give him up in order for him to save all of his bodies so his aiua could live on. Well his aiua lives fully in Peter, and part of Jane's aiua lives in the body of young Val as well as the mother trees and ansibles. Long story which I couldn't even begin to retell. Well what makes me mad is that once the planet is saved and faster than lightspeed travel is reestablished to be used from now on the book is over. Well I want to know what happens to Peter and Si Wang Mu and Jane and Miro and the descaladores. You cannot end a book finding the home planet of the descolada virus and not tell us what happens after. I hope Orson has a plan for that one.
Now in Shadow we go back to when Ender was a child, and the book also isn't really about him in anyway other than the fact that he is the object of worship for a child called Bean. What I love about the book is it gives insight into Ender from a perspective that is not his own. Granted the text at the beginning from an outside source is still there, but naturally the book revolves around Ender so any ideas of what Ender is like seem to come from himself. Bean gives an accurate account of Ender from another view point. I say Bean's account is accurate because of his genetic alteration that allows him deep insights into people. Unfortunately this alteration will be his death as we learn that the scientist who did this found the gene that makes idiot savants, savants and switched it on in a normal person. As the book explains it, the reason savants are delayed elsewhere is because their minds could not contain a normal person's thinking, it would be overload. This is what Bean is experiencing. Because the gene is unlocked he will remember everytning and be as quick as a whip but he will continue to grow and eventually die from organ failure. Sadness for the price of intelligence. The book gives an excellent religious observation though that is worth sharing. When the scientist was explaining that the more we know the faster we die he explained it using the tree of knowledge. He said to have vast amounts of knowledge is to have a short lived life. He even uses the flood as an example. After the flood people lived shorter lives. Sister Carlotta retorts then why are people living so long nowadays, trying to discount his theory. The scientist reply being exactly. However, her point was the fact that we have so much information and knowledge and we are living longer anyways. Perhaps this was even the attitude of people before the flood, afterall they did jeer at Noah thinking they knew so much more than him and that the sky would not pour water.
Clearly Orson's point was that we have so much knowledge today that we think we are gods in and of ourselves, and things that are becoming norms of our society are not Godly. We have so much technical information but we don't know the difference between good and evil which truly was the knowledge that Adam and Eve gained by eating the fruit. I take that back, we do individually know the difference, but as society we don't. So for us to be living longer makes sense, we are becoming as we were before the fall of man. The difference between not knowing now and not knowing before the fall of man what sin is, is that we should know what sin is, and because we should know we are going to pay for it. Heh--sorry religious kick. But these ideas are in Orson's books, and permeate most of his novels. He is in fact Mormon and will not deny his beliefs. So naturally Christian ideas of good and evil will be in his novels. That is partly why I like reading Orson. Anyways, like I said, I had to write down some of these ideas! Happy reading!.