Book Review - Shadow Puppets by Orson Scott Card

Shadow Puppets by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I used to be the sort of person who prided herself on not quitting a book. Much as I flit from one project to another, leaving things unfinished, books and movies deserved my full efforts, no matter how abysmal they might seem in the beginning.

Thanks to a run of bad novels, I've changed my mind. Life is too short to finish a book that doesn't grip you. It's definitely too short to finish a book that makes you roll your eyes, chapter after chapter.

I trudged through the first hour or two of this audiobook with little interest. A rambling quasi-love story, it kept my mind busy while I did my duties as domestic engineer. However, I rarely thought about the story after I'd put it away, and it didn't draw me back in, enticing me to do my chores the way pretty much all of OSC's other books have done. This should have been my first clue that it wasn't worth it.

Then came the preaching.

Orson Scott Card, of whose religious and political beliefs I was blissfully unaware until after my first reading of the original Ender saga, claims not to preach through his fiction, unless he says he is (as in the Alvin Maker series, which is based loosely on the life of Joseph Smith). I could give him the benefit of the doubt, but that would just mean he is painfully unobservant of the underlying messages in his own writing.

From a diatribe against gay marriage (the character given this not-so-subtle soliloquy decides that, even though he's gay, he'll marry a single mother and use his pension to support them. Seriously.) to anti-abortion rhetoric that is pounded like a nail again and again, I just couldn't stomach it anymore.

So I've given up. I've got a to-read list a mile, long, and I'm sure most of it deserves more attention than this drivel.

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Book Review - Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card

Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

No matter my thoughts about his politics, I just can't quit Orson Scott Card. I refuse to pick up his books in paper (or e-paper) form, and insist on listening to them read aloud, usually by voices I've come to know and love through repeated listenings of the Ender Saga. Since Card claims he writes with this in mind, I figure it increases the authenticity of the tale. Besides, it stops me from noticing typos and bad editing, which always pull me from a story.

I know that the Alvin Maker saga is meant to be loosely based on the life of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon religion. I can't decide if it's better or worse for me that I don't know the details of LDS history. Better, probably, because I'm not constantly analyzing the plot, trying to spot the preaching (which I do with the latter Ender books, and it always tarnishes them a little for me). Though I wonder what lovely allegories I am missing. Though not a Christian, I'm always interested in the Christian allegories I find in popular literature. So maybe they're worse for it.

Maybe it's better just to take the book as it is, a tale like so many of Card's, of a bright young boy with a fantastic talent and too much responsibility for his age. The setting of 18th century colonial America almost doesn't matter to the plot. Sure, there is a certain amount of naming convention (with kids named Vigor, Measure, Waste-Not and Want-Not, and so on) and religious fervor only rivaled by today's neo-conservatives, but really, again as most of Card's work, this is a story not about place, but about people.

I'm hoping the series will hold me over until the release of the next Mithermages and Pathfinder books. It kept me engaged, made the time slip away while I worked on my own household chores, and left me eager to borrow the next book in the series from my library's digital library. Really, what more can you ask for?

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Book Review - Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card

Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As seems typical of Card (at least lately), this book is almost more fantasy than science fiction, at least in the beginning. As the story progresses, we see more and more of the sci-fi aspect and the fantasy elements take on a different perspective.

I have yet to "pick up" a Card "book" that I wasn't immediately engaged in, which didn't keep me cleaning my house long after my feet were sore (I only listen to audio versions, and I listen only while cleaning - keeps me motivated). Pathfinder was no different. Rigg's gift, his relationship with his father, and their relationship to the land drew me in quickly, and I was eager to see where it all led.

As the story progressed, new characters were added with rapidity, yet enough was told about each to allow you to connect with them. Never did I feel I learned too much about a character, nor that Card shouldn't have bothered with one at all for what little they added to the story.

By the time the book ends, you care about every one of the characters, and if you've been paying close attention, you have figured out where it's all going. Still it is a relief to actually get there, to hear what resolution there is, and then to read the Acknowledgement section and find out that yes, you did understand it correctly after all.

I'm looking forward to the next book, and hearing what the remaining characters do with their discoveries.

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Book Review - The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card

The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I guess I'm a sucker for the worlds of Orson Scott Card (or maybe just a sucker for the very excellent narrators that tell me his tales), and the combination real/fantasy world of The Lost Gate is no exception.

Danny North lives in a world where the adults bear names like Thor and Loki. Civilization is split into factions of "families," and each faction bears a name which ties it to its history, like "The Greeks" or "The Norths" (who bear Norse heritage). Almost everyone in Danny's world has personal magic, whether it is the ability to possess a bird and bid it do your will or to encourage the plants to grow just a little bigger. But Danny has none of these magical abilities. He is drekka.

Eventually Danny runs away from his family to join the druthers, the non-magical everyday folk who used to worship the families as gods. He plans to live among them, but he has a secret of his own, bigger than his past.

The Lost Gate is a wonderful blend of fantasy and mythology, and is reminiscent of Rick Riordan's Greek (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) and Egyptian (The Kane Chronicles) series, and Michael Scott's The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel.

The characters have depth and capture your sympathies. You really care what happens to this boy, and whether or not he ever makes it to the promised land of Westil.

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Book Review - Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card

Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I wish I'd payed more attention to the chronological order of the series. After finishing Ender's Shadow, I jumped right to this (because it follows Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow chronologically), but it turns out this book references many events in the rest of the Shadow series, so those books have been "spoiled" for me. I'll still listen to them eventually.

I love listening to Ender stories, but I'm the kind of person who gets into a series, a character, and then just loves to read more about them, quality be damned, so take this with whatever grain of salt you will.

There are a few inconsistencies where Ender in Exile overlaps with the concluding chapters of Ender's Game. OSC references them in the afterword, and his explanations are sensible, but it does distract somewhat from the story when you're going, "wait, is that what happened? I thought..." That said, I like this version of events well enough.

If you go straight from EG to EIE, you will almost certainly be disappointed at the pace of this book. However, if you read the rest of the EG series and then jump back to EIE, the pace won't be anything different. It's obvious to me that, while this book follow chronologically from EG, it was written after the rest of the series, because the style is more consistent with those later books.

In all, this is, as a fill-in, a book you can skip without missing anything, but a book worth picking up if you are just hungry for any more Ender stories you can get your hands on.

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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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Book Review - Xenocide by Orson Scott Card

Xenocide by Orson Scott Card

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I still maintain that Speaker for the Dead is the best of the Ender series and that the books get progressively "worse" after that book. That said, I enjoyed Xenocide much more this read-through (listen-through?) than I had previously, mostly because I understood and took interest in the science more than I ever had before.

Knowing what I do about Orson Scott Card and his religious and political beliefs (or at least professions) took a little of the joy out of this book, and more so than the others. I found myself frequently wondering <i>what he was trying to say</i>. Before I had been able to suspend those thoughts and get lost in the story, but they came to the forefront this time.

When I started listening to this books again (I do it about once a year), I didn't intend to read through the whole series, knowing that I could feasibly stop with Speaker and be done, and that I didn't like the other books as much. But as usual, the story drew me in, and even though I KNOW what happens in the long run, I wanted to hear it all again.

If you've never listened to the Ender books, I highly recommend it. The voice acting is phenomenal and really brings the story to life.

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My third time through, and 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). I once again applied what I know about OSC and his beliefs to the telling of this story, and while I was still irritated at times, I also found myself analyzing and questioning and being generally curious about how much of the story does align with mormonism or OSC's personal dogma.

I'll still call this a three-star book, but I am glad that I have read it again (and again), if only to see how I as the audience have changed.

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I almost didn't continue the series this year, but went ahead anyway since I didn't have any more audiobooks lined up and I like to have one going at all times. Also, I couldn't seem to leave Ender, though he features far less prominently in this book that the first two. Once again (though mostly later in the book), I found myself beset by OSC's sneaky dogmatic ideals working their way into the inner personal monologues of his characters. *sigh* Someday, I'll learn that two books is really enough, that I know the rest of the story and don't actually have to keep "reading." There are so many good things out there waiting to be listened to.


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Book Review - Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Orson Scott Card says his books are meant to be heard more than read, and the cast of narrators for Ender's Game is phenomenal.

This book has been billed as YA and it does ok in that genre, but I find I get something more out of the book (the series, really), every time I listen. And Since I first "read" (listened to) this book in 2006, I get the urge to listen to it pretty much once or twice a year, despite the way my "to-read" list keeps growing.

Ender's Game is full of emotion, politics, children you tend to forget are so young, and the war of several lifetimes. And yet, that somehow doesn't begin to describe its depth and complexity. Just pick it up; you won't regret it.

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