Re: Speaker for the Deadcalico_reactionJanuary 4 2011, 02:05:35 UTC
I'll bear that in mind. If I do change my mind, it won't be anytime soon. There's WAY too much to read in the TBR pile. :)
But thank you for the recommendation. I heard that the only reason he wrote Ender's Game is because he needed to flesh out the backstory for Speaker for the Dead?
Re: Speaker for the DeaddaughterjudyFebruary 10 2011, 04:37:01 UTC
He sat down with the intention of creating Speaker as a stand alone and then someone suggested that the Speaker be Ender. (it explains it in the authors forward at the beginning of Speaker)
First, love the icon. I'm squinting and could be wrong, but is that Jamie Bamber from BSG?
Second, that's what I believe people call the Suck Fairy. I'd never heard the term until last year, but it's quite apt. :)
Card (and some other authors) are definitely worth taking a look at for people who want to write professionally. How you come off to the public for one, and what may or may not slip through into your own work even if you don't want it too. Fascinating stuff, that. :)
I first encountered the notion of the Suck Fairy courtesy of Jo Walton (who also writes excellent book reviews). I've no idea who actually coined the term, but s/he did a brilliant job of capturing the viscerality of the phenomenon extremely succinctly. Jo's description can be found here (with apologies for the ugliness of the link): http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/09/the-suck-fairy#132212
I didn't care for Ender's Game. But I had it shoved at me by an ex-boyfriend who thought it was the BEST BOOK EVER and a WORK OF PROFOUND LITERATURE that would CHANGE MY LIFE.
...y'know come to think of it, his affection for the book and my "Jesus christ, get this thing away from me" response to it probably indicated just how ill-advised our relationship was.
I have liked other Card books; Harts Hope, while written in a rather odd voice (and with a freaking stupid ending) is one of those books I still think about now and then even though I only read it once, and that years ago.
I loved this book when I first read it, and have enjoyed it on my several re-reads. Possibly because I would kill lto get into the Battle School. Sounds like a far better use of my time than public school was.
That said, I couldn't get into Speaker for the Dead at all. It is a vastly different story, which might've been what turned me off. I might fare better if I tried it now, but at 14, it was not what I was looking for in a sequel to Ender's Game.
On a different, but related note, everyone I know seems to love GRR Martin, but I'm halfway into Game of Thrones and rather bored by it.
That's too bad about the Martin. A friend of mine has a 100 page test and A Game of Thrones didn't pass. He's looking forward to the HBO show, though, as that medium might be better suited for what he's looking for. Do you think you'll give the show a shot, or are you unable?
I'd love to try the show, but I have a dire lack of cable and I'm most likely to be working the hours it airs.
Based on the reactions of other readers from Odyssey, I'll try to finish this book, and maybe give the next one a few pages to see if something grabs me. I know it's a lengthy series, so if I find something I like, I'm willing to forgive sections that I find unappealing. I've read up to the current Wheel of Time book, so I do have a history of such forgiveness...
A large factor that goes into whether this book entertains or not is whether you know the twist ahead of time, and whether you buy into it by the end. Fortunately, this was probably the first "real" SF book I read (aside from Dune) in high school and has that large imprint on my life now. I was surprised with the twist ending and think that had a lot to do with it.
To be fair, this isn't so much a story about how war affects children so much as a book that sets up how the children (who happen to act upon the intelligence they have and seem like adults) behave as adults later on in the series, but yes, there is some of that in here. I'm not trying to knock your reaction, but come from having read 9 books in this series/saga and know where the plot takes Valentine, Peter, Bean, Petra, and Ender. Ender's regret is explored in several other books and at one point, delves into religion
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No knocking interpreted (though a little knocking doesn't hurt now and then either): you're by far the expert! I do know a little of the history behind this book (OSC wrote it so he could writer Speaker for the Dead or something like that), but I do think, as a stand-alone, one could examine what the nature of war (humanity had fought two battles with the buggers in the past) and the need to survive does to a society and how it therefore treats its children. Not ALL children, obviously, but if things hadn't been so desperate in humanity's eyes, would they have turned to children for such training?
For the series at large, I of course defer to your opinion. Speaking of which, does the series get better, get worse, or stay the same for you, in terms of your emotional investment?
Dune, btw, was an interesting experience. I tried to read it in 2005, couldn't get through it (hated the omniscient POV), and only gave it another go (in 2007? 2008?) because of David Hartwell's Age of Wonders historical text of the SF genre and what he says
( ... )
Absolutely! I do think Ender's Game has elements that lend itself to that sort of discussion. Children are engineered for the sake of war, which we don't find out until later, but I suppose I look at it more from a different perspective because as you noticed, there's less commentary there than on the society itself, not necessarily the children. OSC seemed more concerned with that in this book than with the repercussions on the children's mentalities. That is definitely dealt with in later books and not just for Ender. Other characters have to deal with the cards society has dealt them, both by putting them through war and command at an early age, and by engineering/breeding them to be so intelligent in the first place
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That said, I think Speaker for the Dead is a better book. It's a different book and I think you may enjoy it.
But I'd advise reading it and stopping there.
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But thank you for the recommendation. I heard that the only reason he wrote Ender's Game is because he needed to flesh out the backstory for Speaker for the Dead?
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Second, that's what I believe people call the Suck Fairy. I'd never heard the term until last year, but it's quite apt. :)
Card (and some other authors) are definitely worth taking a look at for people who want to write professionally. How you come off to the public for one, and what may or may not slip through into your own work even if you don't want it too. Fascinating stuff, that. :)
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Thanks for jogging my memory and filling in the blanks. :)
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It didn't.
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I have liked other Card books; Harts Hope, while written in a rather odd voice (and with a freaking stupid ending) is one of those books I still think about now and then even though I only read it once, and that years ago.
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When did you read it?
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That said, I couldn't get into Speaker for the Dead at all. It is a vastly different story, which might've been what turned me off. I might fare better if I tried it now, but at 14, it was not what I was looking for in a sequel to Ender's Game.
On a different, but related note, everyone I know seems to love GRR Martin, but I'm halfway into Game of Thrones and rather bored by it.
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Based on the reactions of other readers from Odyssey, I'll try to finish this book, and maybe give the next one a few pages to see if something grabs me. I know it's a lengthy series, so if I find something I like, I'm willing to forgive sections that I find unappealing. I've read up to the current Wheel of Time book, so I do have a history of such forgiveness...
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(The comment has been removed)
To be fair, this isn't so much a story about how war affects children so much as a book that sets up how the children (who happen to act upon the intelligence they have and seem like adults) behave as adults later on in the series, but yes, there is some of that in here. I'm not trying to knock your reaction, but come from having read 9 books in this series/saga and know where the plot takes Valentine, Peter, Bean, Petra, and Ender. Ender's regret is explored in several other books and at one point, delves into religion ( ... )
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For the series at large, I of course defer to your opinion. Speaking of which, does the series get better, get worse, or stay the same for you, in terms of your emotional investment?
Dune, btw, was an interesting experience. I tried to read it in 2005, couldn't get through it (hated the omniscient POV), and only gave it another go (in 2007? 2008?) because of David Hartwell's Age of Wonders historical text of the SF genre and what he says ( ... )
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