When I was 19 years old, I picked up a book in a newly opened bookstore. I knew nothing about the author, Orson Scott Card, and certainly knew very little about the science fiction genre outside of my dad’s Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke books and what I was forced to read of Bradbury in school. I picked it up out of boredom, and because the soft book cover stated both “Hugo” and “Nebula” award winner.

That book was Ender’s Game . And it changed the way I view books, and certainly the way I viewed science fiction. It was incredible.

Ender’s game is the first of what was originally four books: Ender’s Game , Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind.

ENDERS GAME:
The story of Ender Wiggon, genetically bread child genius, raised to be both the perfect diplomat and warrior, charged with the task of wiping out an alien race perceived as being a threat to mankind, cronical’s his early life, military school, and his destined final act of wiping out the alien species. This book deserved it’s awards and then some. It was both a terrific, fast, read and a pychological thriller, while being equally soft and strong on the human element. The characters here are very human, fully fleshed out, filled with self-doubt, anger, fear, pain, joy, and something exceedingly rare in sci-fi, love.

SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD
This one won both hugo and Nebula awards AGAIN. Card expands the story of Ender (here he is in his 30’s). He moves to an alien planet where a third, less bizaar, but more primitive alien species is found (resembling human pigs). This story adds a political element and addresses the normal human response to “Xenophobia”. In this story, we are introduced to a computer program called “Jane” which becomes an intregal part of the series. What shocked me about this story is that it is immediately engaging, just like the first story, but the tone and feel of the book is completely different. It continues the first book beautifully, but is not reliant on the first.

XENOCIDE
This continues the series yet again. This time Ender is grown a bit, and his sister is headed to his planet (30 years of space travel) in which she will not age but he will. XENOCIDE is a great read, though not as ground breaking as the first two books. Moreover, the themes in Xenocide are no longer political and phycological, but more science fiction is introduced. Card does attempt to cover Myth in this book. Overall it was a great sequal.

CHILDREN OF THE MIND
Here Card throws a ton of ideas into the mix. Unfortunately, Ender spends the majority of the book in a coma, leaving the “lesser” edge characters to carry the book. He also delves into the theory of the origin of the “piggies” and the social ramifications of living among the “buggers” (the original, more advance, alien species). Unfortunately, Card stretches himself a wee bit thin with this book introducing too many themes to keep up with. I was also disappointed that I had to say goodbye to the character that I grew so attached to, Ender Wiggen.

Overall, I love these books. Having had the pleasure of meeting Card, I realized that he writes his books, then gives them to his wife to read each chapter. She then tells him why she does or does not like something, and he modifies it to please her—this is why they have such a strong human element to them.

I am so glad that serendipity worked in my favor in picking up that book so many years ago.


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[Edited 8/21/05 16:37pm]

I did the same thing, while driving to florida from new jersey, I was about....11 or 12 and the book was "The Dragon Riders of Pern"

jerseykrs2 said:

Well, damn--when thread don't get jacked, they're boring as hell arent' they?

LOL, and I stayed on topic too!!!

You're myspace picture scares me. That's off topic, right?

jerseykrs2 said:

That's a picture from the Toni & Guy website.

Well. sort of. I made a few minor changes to it.

I have a hard time reading sci fi books.... they usually seem to detached from reality and I have a hard time keeping up with the fictional language,(what race is who, what planets they live on etc...) .

Sweeny79 said:

This is nothing like that. At least the first and second books.


They're very human.

ImagoMind777 said:

I might check it out then, I need something out of my norm to read.

Sweeny79 said:

Dee Dee Ramone doesn’t quite know what he’s getting himself into when he and his wife Barbara move into the squalid Chelsea Hotel with their dog Banfield. He spends most of his time trying to score drugs and walking Banfield, with whom he can magically communicate. Meanwhile, he can’t stand his neighbors and shies away from violence, but wishes everyone were six feet under. He also thinks that the room he’s staying in is the very room where his old friend Sid Vicious stabbed Nancy Spungen, and begins having nightmares of Nancy emerging from the bathroom with a knife wound. After one of his nightmares, an evil force enters his hotel room and hurls him against a wall. Dee Dee also gets involved with the transvestite lover of one of his gay fellow addicts. When his wife finds out, the two fight it out and become seriously wounded. During all this, Dee Dee is tormented by the living and dead demons that plague the hotel, along with the ghosts of his old dead punk rock friends Sid Vicious, Johnny Thunders and Stiv Bators. And that’s when the Devil himself decides to join the party…

jerseykrs2 said:

Thanks Jersey!

That sounds really good! But that's the kind of stuff I usually read.

Sweeny79 said:

here's a book ImagoMind lent me. not my cup of tea, but you might enjoy it.

chico4U said:

chico4U said:

ImagoMind777 said:

that was supposed to have only been between us.

I actually got my screenname from a Sci Fi book...




The blurb at Amazon says:

When Sweeney Cassidy, a naive freshman at the University of the Archangels and St. John the Divine in Washington, D.C., falls in with the wrong crowd, she is expelled for taking part in a lurid escapade. But Hand (Icarus Descending) offers no usual tale of adolescent antics in this full-blooded gothic fantasy. The university is a haven of the Benandanti, who for millennia have guarded against the return of their ancient foe, Othiym Lunarsa, the Moon Goddess. In Hand's post-feminist tale, however, the goddess is not a comfortable earth mother figure but a powerful destroyer. The Benandanti are unaware that Sweeney's friends Oliver and Angelica are the Chosen Ones, whose violent coupling under the moon will begin to wake Othiym. Oliver kills himself, Angelica disappears and Sweeney is whisked away by the Benandanti. Twenty years later, Sweeney's summer intern at the National Museum of Natural History turns out to be the son of her old classmates, the result of that wild moonlit night. Young Dylan's mother has become Angelica Furiano, a New Age author with a large following of goddess worshippers. As Angelica's power grows, fed by the blood of young men, she is gradually becoming the goddess. But Sweeney, vowing to thwart the transformation, confronts Othiym in an apocalyptic showdown. Blending the ancient with the modern, the fantastic with the real, Hand has created a violently sensual fable helped by smart pacing and vibrant prose.

I read Dickens's 'The Old Curiosity Shop' when I was about 7 or 8 and I think that contributed in turning me into the dull person I am today. I was never much into sci-fi although I do remember reading a couple of Terry Pratchet books when I was young.

Fauxie said:

You are not dull! Oh, by the way, I'm liking your signatures less and less lately.

ImagoMind777 said:

Pffft!

And I changed it. You likey likey?

Orgnote me.






(goes away and cries into his hands about turning into AB more and more each day)

Fauxie said:

You really crack me shit up.

I've noticed your vernacular is getting more AB like though.
That's fierce.

anyone ever seen the plain sun chips in the shops anymore?

i miss those.

ImagoMind777 said:

Similar, yes, but I think you'll find I still have the larger vernacular.

Fauxie said:

Yes, but my veinacular stretched so thinly over the population in which I live.

Milty said:

ImagoMind777 said:

Yeah, you like to spread it around.


Remember though. As much as it's nice to stretch (and widen) your vernacular, there's nothing wrong with it being efficient and compact. It's how you use your vernacular that matters. Size isn't everything... etc. etc.
[Edited 8/21/05 18:36pm]

Fauxie said:

:crap:

I meant "is NOT"

ImagoMind777 said:

:toolate:

Fauxie said: