Orson Scott Card

[Brian G Turner]

* - * - * - * - * WARNING! Potential spoilers for "Ender's Game"! * - * - * - * - * --
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Well, I finally read "Ender's Game".

An enjoyable, if somewhat disturbing novel.

A few gripes, however...

For one, I never found the ages of any of the children to be convincing. 12 years old? Maybe. But never did it read like growing 6 year olds.

It also seemed incredible that there appeared to be no strategy training whatsoever - that the children were supposed to be inspired to tactical thinking and then pass it on. Where were the important military commanders? Seems like the couple of named military figures were constants for the sake of the reader, rather than plot, though.

Also - the sibling sub-plot seemed quite unnecessary - having a couple of chapters covering their future (and somewhat unrealistic) rise to world power simply seemed a excuse (device) to force Ender to stay on the alien world long enough to realise the real extent of what he had done.

Last point - Ender found the new alien queen on the same planet they had re-arraged all of the molecules on? Hope I'm wrong in thinking that, otherwise none of the alien constructions should have survived - particularly those essential to the resolution.

Anyway...it's easy to be critical. As I said, for the most part, a good and engaging read.

The follow on novels in the series, though - I'm under the impression, perhaps also cynically so, that they are mere commercial cash-ins, designed to expand upon a story that probably requires no real expansion. Anyone read the follow ons? Decent novels in their own right?

Feel free to comment.

 

[Survivor]

Point one, precocious six year olds can be like that.

Point two, the whole point is to foster creativity. Formal training in strategy and tactics is actually the enemy of innovative thought, as Sun Tzu points out. A proper study of great generals only seeks to see what they did wrong, not what "should" be imitated. Imitation is death on the battlefield.

Actually, the Peter/Valentine issue is vitally important to Ender personally, and for Peter to be a pluasible bogeyman for Ender, he has to be just as smart. Likewise, Val--in order to "deserve" the love and trust that Ender invests in her--must also be 99.9999999th percentile. Otherwise, her "goodness" is too easily dismissed as relative simplemindedness. Given the importance that OSC gives to relatively anonymous "nets" in his future society, and the character traits he gives Peter, the world domination part is a no brainer (read Shadow of the Hegemon, it's much better than the other books that you might be tempted to read next ).

Last point. Yes, you're wrong in thinking that it was the "home planet" that Ender colonized. Not only was that planet rendered uninhabitable permanantly, it was the farthest away from Earth (now that, I have a quibble with--why would the Buggers only have expanded towards Earth?).

The later novels are all quite different. Speaker for the Dead is almost completely about intimate human relationships. Xenocide is all about human evil and why we do the worst things we do. Children of the Mind is...basically a fantasy about how wonderful the universe could be if all the true wishes of our hearts could come true.

Ender's Shadow is sort of a redaction of Ender's Game, though an excellent one. I don't recommend reading it right after Ender's Game if you haven't read any of the other books. Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets are all about penetrating the illusions built up around the reasons that nations go to war or make peace. Both are very speculative, but I liked both of them a lot (though I thought the ending of Shadow Puppets was sort of a let down).

Almost all of Card's published works are worth reading in their own right (both from a literary and thematic standpoint). Some of his later work features an overabundance of character introspection (you know, where the POV character seeks knowledge of the mysteries of the universe by studying his navel), but it hasn't ruined any of his books...yet (you should see me when I actually get critical...or maybe you shouldn't ).

 

[Brian G Turner]

On issue one, the characters were simply too precocious for myself to find realistic. This was applicable to the range of children, including the school yard scene at the intro.

The strategy issue - sure, creativity can be useful - cf, the changes the Romans made comparative to Greek hoplites, or the Macedonian change to the phalanx. But there are basic issues that always require addressing. The novel never hinted of being taught strategic thinking - as if it all had to be all inspired. But there's always a required base of teaching and experience to work from - it's how you utilise it that the creativity comes in. Ender never appeared to have that, other than spatial games.

Glad I was wrong about the home planet, though . I suspected so.

I'll take your recommendation on the other OSC books and keep an eye out.

 

[Survivor]

I actually thought that they weren't precocious enough (six years old and they were acting like they were maybe four...on a sugar binge). It may be that Card is just used to really bright, precocious kids by most people's standards.

I have to hold firm on the strategy issue, though. They did teach Ender the tactical mechanics of using the actual weapons and ships when the proper time came (in Command School), but the last thing you want to do to a general is hamstring him with what "cannot" be done. They let the kids loose, and judged by the results. In part, this reflects the fact that as much as being about training, BattleSchool was about selection, finding the kids that could come up with the solutions on their own (for instance, if you ran a math class to find the math geniuses rather than teach all the kids basic math, you wouldn't want to teach them algorithms or have them memorize tables and so forth). But it also is essential to the process of teaching strategic thinking (as opposed to specific tactics) that you force the student to come up with their own solutions under fairly intense pressure.

Tactics can and must be taught, but they should be made secondary to training strategic aptitudes, otherwise you will impose limitations on the ability of the commander to respond to unexpected situations, as well as to create them for the enemy. The art of war is all about doing what the enemy doesn't expect, and responding to his surprises with your own. A predictable commander is certain to lose unless his enemy is a fool.

Looking at what you cite (Roman tactics v. hoplites and phalanxes and such), I guess that you were talking about tactical instruction. Card does go light on it, but it is there, and in the proper place, Tac/Nav/Support and Command school, when the kids have already been trained in strategic thinking. You might want to read Ender's Shadow fairly soon after all, since it addresses those issues in somewhat greater detail (Bean is, at heart, a tactical thinker rather than a strategist--so am I, when you come right down to it).

 

[Brian G Turner]

I guess the issue of precociousness is one that would be difficult to approach regardless. It's a little ironic that I thought them far too precocious, yet you thought they were not precocious enough!

Tactical instruction - that would sound about right. The actual command school section was very short relative to the rest of the book, and divulged very little information other than who his mentor was. Sounds like OSC has developed it better elsewhere. In fact, the way this thread has gone, it sounds like the other novels in the series have some good strong points.

Either way, "Ender's Game" was written very engagingly - the reader-character association was very well constructed.

 

[Survivor]

Yeah, but kids are different. All the kids in my family learn to read (and in the newest generation, use computers) early, and that means that my experience of what six year olds are like is probably different from what is actually typical.

A lot of the childishness is there, though. Like how Ender and Val are both really afraid that Peter will kill them, or how she makes him a cake and he thinks that it's something that people only did in the past rather than just something that their family doesn't do...that sort of thing. How he kicks Stilson to death and neither he nor any of the other kids realizes it.

Ender's Game is actually better in some ways than many of Card's later books. I think that sometime around Xenocide or Children of the mind he started getting too fond of...I already mentioned this, didn't I?

 

[nemesis]

Orson Scott Cards continuall rewriting of the same topics in Enders Game is tantamount to admitting either a shortage of ideas or else that the first book was a failure in its telling.

 

[Survivor]

Well, it would be if he visited the same topics, but he doesn't. What he does is visit the same world.

Ender's Game was a great sucess, but there were a lot of themes and topics that it just never encompassed. Have you ever read it?

 

[nemesis]

Comment accepted. Does he revisit the same story arc because it is a successful commercial vehicle first?

 

[Survivor]

Well, yes and no.

He didn't connect Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead for commercial reasons, since they appeal to different audiences. The reasoning was artistic. Who better to be the speaker for the dead than the child that commited the Xenocide? Indeed, who else could have the right?

Speaker for the Dead left a lot of open tensions at the end. Eventually, Card wrote several sequels. There was nothing too commercial in his intent here, as OSC fans tend to be OSC rather than Speaker for the Dead series fans (if you read the series you'll understand why--which is why you should read some of his other work first ).

Then he was approached about having another writer do some more battleschool stories. This was commercial. Card didn't want to write any more "kids in space" books, at least, he thought he didn't. So he started to work with this other author that would be writing books about battleschool.

And Card realized, thinking about it, that he did want to write those stories himself after all. So he snatched the project back, revised the concept, and set to work.

I guess you could say something about the artistic integrity of having the original writer write those books or something, but Card admits that he was just being selfish. He wanted to write those books himself, and since he hadn't signed the dotted line just yet, he ran with it.

So he wouldn't have revisited the Battleschool if it hadn't been for the fact that there was a commercial push behind it, but he wouldn't have written them himself if the idea hadn't attracted him all over again as an artist.

I don't know of anything that Card has written "just to pay the bills", come to think of it. And he does a fair amount of his writing gratis. He's one of those "I'm gonna change the world" types, I guess (read A Storyteller in Zion sometime to get an idea of how radically he wants to change the world--if the title doesn't say it all).

 

[littlemissattitude]

Just a note about the precociousness of the children in Ender's Game and the rest.

I didn't find them at all unbelievable, or too precocious. Some kids do read at a very young age - I was reading by the time I was three. Some kids are capable of relating to the adult world at a very young age - I frightened more than a few adults when they realized, when I was about four, that I was reading the newspaper and understanding it.

I am fairly certain that Orson Scott Card must have been one of those children, as well, when he was younger. I don't think anyone who hasn't been there could have written those kids so insightfully.

 

[Brian G Turner]

My objection about the children being precocious was not about their abilities - it was simply that children have a very characteristic - some would may say unpolluted - way of looking at the world. I see a lot of naivety in children, simply because they do not have access to the life experience necessary to shape a lot of behaviour.

My own children are very intelligent and well-developed - my four-year old has been doing maths books for 6 year old's, and has a great fascination for the solar system. She's very well developed mentally, but she still looks on the world with child's eyes.

I guess my complaint was that the children in "Ender's Game" always seemed too close to only being a projection of an adult - I didn't see Orson Scott Card as successfully being able to bring alive the mind of a 5-year old (as Ender was at the start, if I remember right). There were events to do with children, but not much in terms of children relating to the world. That's what I was trying to comment on.

Or maybe I've just being overly critical, as usual.

The short story "Flowers for Algernon" was raised in another thread - when I read that around 16 years of age (and therefore less critically!) I was utterly convinced that Charlie Gordon was faithfully represented in the extremes of IQ. I still remember a scene where he is in a restaurant with a nurse commenting on the mathematical rhythms of Bach, and she wonders about how his intelligent has grown but he still lacks the ability to relate to people because he hasn't had that experience.

My point being, I felt like if Card had written "Flowers for Algernon" then Charlie Gordon would have acquired charisma and social aptitude with his improved intelligence. Perhaps that analogy will help illustrate what I mean. Or maybe I'm wrong.

Quite likely I would have been far more convinced that Ender was 5 if I had read that at 16 instead of/as well as "Flowers for Algernon".

Either way, feel free to disagree with me. It's simply how I experienced the book. I know my position is somewhat heretical.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Brian...Consider yourself lucky that you are around kids that have been able to keep that naievete (sp?) that children are supposed to have. I know some that have been able to, as well. Unfortunately, I have also been around far too many who, because of their life circumstances, have not been able to keep that, and actually make the kids in Ender's Game look fairly naive.

I think your point about Ender and the other kids in Card's work does have validity to it. However, there are kids who do have that - I don't know, world-weariness to the point of being completely jaded - to them at a very young age. And that is really sad.

I think one of the problems in portraying kids - any kids - in literature, or in films and television, for that matter, is that there is such a stereotype of how kids are, that we adults tend to see any portrayal that varies from that stereotype as being over the top. And many times it is. I think there are places in Card's books when it is. But I also think one of the points of Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, as well, is that, at the end of the day, kids get treated like kids no matter how precocious or experienced in the ways of the world they are. Or maybe this only reflects the frustration I remember at being seven or eight or nine years old and knowing that I was right and the adult was wrong, but just getting patted on the head and ignored or told to run along and play. I don't know.

Just my opinion.

 

[Brian G Turner]

No problem.

You raise an important point about life experience, though - thinking about it now there was the strange violent relationship with the elder brother. That was a good writing tool - snare the user into immediately sympathising (thus, associating) with Ender because of his early suffering. I guess it's also a justification for his more mature attitude.

I guess the ultimate problem for any writer is that we can only write project ourselves. We can aim to modify and frame it to such an extent that the core emotional being is expressed as a wholly different person, in terms of physical attributes - gender, culture, attitude, etc. But at the end of the day, we cannot create original beings - simply create a determined illusion that we have.

As for the children - maybe I simply need to -reread "Ender's Game" again.

 

[pearce]

I very recently read Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, so I had the advantage (maybe?) of having the latest author intro in the book, which was pretty interesting, if maybe a little leading. Anyway the intro to ender's game mentioned some letters he had received from children who read the book, and they seemed pretty up to speed, even a little precocious.

Anyway, I had a question and I wonder if any of you would know -- after reading ender's game, which I bought in the airport bookstore, I noticed another...version? I guess in the kids section of a big bookstore -- is there any difference between those two editions?

I started reading F/SF at a young age, and I can completely see that i should have read ender then (although it may not have been around, now that I think of it) so I'm wondering whether the "kid's version" was different... I'd hate to think they were dumbed down, because I think the version I read would have been accessible to anyone younger as well.

 

[cyborg_cinema]

I'd hate to think they were dumbed down...

...Ender's Game had plenty of profanity to deal with, before even thinking about making the story any simpler.

 

[cyborg_cinema]

I very recently read Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead...

...I hope Speaker for the Dead was more mature than Ender's Game as novels.

 

[ScottSF]

I liked Ender's Game enough to go on to Speaker for the Dead and for me, Speaker for the Dead is several orders of magnitude better than Ender's. I am really wishing I had started reading this book on a holiday break because I do not wan't to put it down. After I finnish I'll look deeper into what other's thought but right now I"m just buzzing from the "this is the book I have been waiting for" feeling.

 

[alicebandassassin]

enders game is ok and somtimes i think we all wont more no matter how mutch we get i like to think if i read a book and i dont wont to stop till the end then its done its job evan if there are beter examples about you get somthing different from every book you read

 

[bitteroldhag]

I sort of questioned the precociousness of the children in Ender's Game, but I didn't care. It's a great read. I am reading Shadow of the Hegemon now, and it's pretty unbelievable with regard to what children can do, but Card makes sure that we understand that these kids are the ultimate geniuses. Their IQs are off the scale. I find it very interesting that the kids think like adults, or possibly like smart adults should think. Most of us don't think like that, and I like the fact that Card allows us to see kids (adults) really thinking. As a teacher, I don't see that very often. But I like to think, and I like to try to stay ahead of Bean in Shadow of the Hegemon. I haven't managed it yet although I tested out in the 99 percentile on the MAT. I don't think any of us are as smart as these kids. That makes these kids intriguing. Bean, particularly, is the product of eugenics which is becoming more and more possible with DNA studies. But overall, I just think these books are good reads. I like OSC and Kristine Kathryn Rusch almost as much as I like Terry Pratchett, and I'm a major Pratchett fan. My, as an old person I've noticed that science fiction has changed a lot over the years. I'm considering adding a Pratchett book to one of my classes and we already teach Ender's Game in young adult literature. But I'm glad to see such good critical thinking on this site.