Book Review - Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card

Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"[No single] explanation will ever contain the final answer for all time, for all hearers. There is always, ALWAYS more to learn."

And I find that true of reading a book again and again as well. Sometimes I like this one more, sometimes less. It's never going to be my favorite of the series (Speaker will hold that honor), but each time I read it, I get something different out of it. As you'll see below (in an older review), sometimes I get dogma and preaching that make me roll my eyes. This time, I got the love and intention that bind us together as human beings. I can live with that.

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I've never liked the end of the Ender Saga as much as the beginning. Speaker for the Dead is a hard act to follow. The first couple of times listened to the series, I severely disliked Xenocide and CotM was a consolation, a resolution to the conflict of SftD, if nothing else. I resolved not to read the end of the series again once I'd done it once and found out the story.

But even now, on my third time through, I still couldn't just stop with Speaker. I had to finish out the series, and I'll say that I appreciated Xenocide more this third time around, and Children of the Mind was actually the story I rolled my eyes through. I guess you do get something different out of a book every time you read it (or listen, as it were). While Xenocide was formerly the book I sighed through, rolling my eyes at what I perceived to be OSC's personal dogma coming through his story, this time it was CotM.

I wish I'd written the review as I was listening instead of waiting a couple of weeks and a couple more books before sitting down, because I can't remember what exactly it was that rubbed me wrong about this book this time around. But I remember being surprised that I disliked it so much, as before it was my consolation after wading through Xenocide. Let's just say either way, I was happy to jump back to Ender's Shadow.

I've gotten something different out of this book every time I read it, anyway, and I will probably continue to work my way through the entire series once every year or two, as I've done since first picking it up.


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