tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17108773.post1199258225117029012..comments2023-12-11T06:18:29.760+00:00Comments on inuit panda scarlet carwash: "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Cardianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09958839106380353855noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17108773.post-86563207186447657852010-07-17T16:55:02.449+01:002010-07-17T16:55:02.449+01:00Ray, interesting link, though I think yer man goes...Ray, interesting link, though I think yer man goes a bit overboard.<br /><br />William (and Ray) - I think the way the book deals with childhood is a bit strange and unconvincing. Ender never really seems to be as young as the book paints him, even allowing for him being a child prodigy etc.. I suspect also that children that young are not capable of the kind of violent acts he is - not morally, but physically. I doubt that six year olds have the muscle strength to kill someone in the way he does towards the book's beginning. <br /><br />The book's basic premise - that star fleet was launching an invasion of the bugger systems that had no chance of succeeding unless they could conjure up a military genius the like of which had never before been seen - is plainly insane. <br /><br />So I am trying to think about why I liked this book. I think the battle school stuff - all the games and their escalating difficulty and so on - cracked along well. Maybe it's that, the Locke and Demosthenes stuff, and the end. <br /><br />I don't think I will ever bother with the sequels, with the possible exception of Ender's Shadow (I like the idea of telling a story again from a minor character's point of view).ianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09958839106380353855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17108773.post-36026326682030912312010-07-15T14:52:31.341+01:002010-07-15T14:52:31.341+01:00I liked Speaker for the Dead too. Ender's Game...I liked Speaker for the Dead too. Ender's Game bored me; the twist that the games were for real was obvious and wouldn't have been interesting even if it was better hidden, and the Federalist Letters bit was reasonably interesting but I don't remember it being tied in well dramatically to the rest of the book. I don't even remember the epilogue that clearly made such an impression on you -- maybe I'd tuned out by then.<br /><br />I think the impact relies on a kind of sentimentalization of childhood, such that "he is thirteen years old and has committed genocide without knowing it" is supposed to carry a greater punch than "he has committed genocide without knowing it". In so far as it does carry that punch, it's a cheap trick and I don't think the book says anything particularly interesting about childhood to justify using it.William Whytehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09395568891364573008noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17108773.post-49278550394571959062010-07-12T22:56:07.509+01:002010-07-12T22:56:07.509+01:00Some people (eg. Nicholas) like the immediate sequ...Some people (eg. Nicholas) like the immediate sequels, Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide, but they didn't do much for me. <br />Ender's Game is a constant source of arguments in SF criticism, there's an interesting essay here<br />http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htmRayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10982456781495860478noreply@blogger.com