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Empire #1

Empire

orson scott card

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The American Empire has grown too fast, and the fault lines at home are stressed to the breaking point. The war of words between Right and Left has collapsed into a shooting war, though most people just want to be left alone.

The battle rages between the high-technology weapons on one side, and militia foot-soldiers on the other, devastating the cities, and overrunning the countryside. But the vast majority, who only want the killing to stop and the nation to return to more peaceful days, have technology, weapons and strategic geniuses of their own.

When the American dream shatters into violence, who can hold the people and the government together? And which side will you be on?

Orson Scott Card is a master storyteller, who has earned millions of fans and reams of praise for his previous science fiction and fantasy novels. Now he steps a little closer to the present day with this chilling look at a near future scenario of a new American Civil War.

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1,2006
Series
Empire
Literary awards
prometheus hall of fame award, 

This edition

Format
352 pages, Hardcover
Published
November 28, 2006 by Tor Books
ISBN
9780765316110
ASIN
0765316110
Language
English

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About the author

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orson scott card

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Orson Scott Card is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is (as of 2023) the only person to have won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for his novel Ender's Game (1985) and its sequel Speaker for the Dead (1986). A feature film adaptation of Ender's Game, which Card co-produced, was released in 2013. Card also wrote the Locus Fantasy Award-winning series The Tales of Alvin Maker (1987–2003).
Card's fiction often features characters with exceptional gifts who make difficult choices with high stakes. Card has also written political, religious, and social commentary in his columns and other writing; his opposition to homosexuality has provoked public criticism.
Card, who is a great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, was born in Richland, Washington, and grew up in Utah and California. While he was a student at Brigham Young University (BYU), his plays were performed on stage. He served in Brazil as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and headed a community theater for two summers. Card had 27 short stories published between 1978 and 1979, and he won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in 1978. He earned a master's degree in English from the University of Utah in 1981 and wrote novels in science fiction, fantasy, non-fiction, and historical fiction genres starting in 1979. Card continued to write prolifically, and he has published over 50 novels and 45 short stories.
Card teaches English at Southern Virginia University; he has written two books on creative writing and serves as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest. He has taught many successful writers at his "literary boot camps". He remains a practicing member of the LDS Church and Mormon fiction writers Stephenie Meyer, Brandon Sanderson, and Dave Wolverton have cited his works as a major influence.

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Community Reviews

Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
28(28%)
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33(33%)
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39(39%)
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100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Yardhouse12
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I have to say that Orson Scott Card has got to be one of the most intelligent authors I have read. He is very sensible and knows how to get to the real issues. I really liked the story of Empire however the way in which this story is told I did not like. I recently attended one of Cards lectures on how he writes and how he comes up with ideas for stories and I found out that he doesn't ever write a second draft. He rewrites his first draft several times because he believes that the actual life of a story is lost by rewriting over and over again. The problem with this theory is evident in books like Empire. The only real issue I have with this book is the amount of dialog contained in it. The characters are consistently talking about the entire plot with a few action sequences thrown in between the dialog. I think this book would have been so much better if I was shown the clues and allowed to try and figure out what the answers were instead of reading a character who is talking about what he thinks is going on and answers all the mysteries before I even had a chance to figure them out. Card says in the book that a general can be too smart for his own good and end up giving his enemy too much credit. I think Card has been too smart for this story and has denied the reader a chance to solve the mysteries.
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XiRoLiRo
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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The story is interesting and the concept is entirely plausible to some extent.. the biggest issue with the book is that Card clearly hates anyone who isn’t a Christian conservative. Spoiler, the progressives are the bad guys and he spends a lot of time having characters voice his disdain for them and how they’re ruining America (even before the rebellion). Yes he occasionally throws in cessily who chimes “this could easily be the other way around with the fanatic right rebelling,” but shortly after it goes back to the same old song and dance. (What’s ironic, writing this in 2023, is that the plot revolves around the progressive left being unhinged because they can’t accept the results of an election… and yet I’m sure to Cards dismay, it wasn’t the progressives that played this out in reality, but his darling fanatic conservatives who became unhinged failing to accept an election and stormed Congress…
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Dhafindaffa
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I actually thoroughly enjoyed this book: although I did not for a long time. It has a definite flavour of being political: although I could not figure out which side he was on. At one point he seemed to be standing against the right, and then it was all against the left. I've always loved Mr. Card's writing, and I was sad for much of it that he was becoming so political... and passionately so, although he seemed to shift back and forth. It was not till nearly at the end that I realized this was what he was trying to do. As I wrapped up the storyline I thought of how effective it was, since it forced you to look at both sides of the issues... and I honestly don't remember who was right or wrong.

In the afterward he explained that this is the danger today. We are so embroiled in our own opinions that we can't see the other side: each of us maintains our internal consistency without bothering to see that it does not correspond with reality. The U.S. is in danger of another civil war. And if we're not careful, we will do the same in Canada.

I have read some reviews and was surprised to find that some people really did not like it: I believe precisely because they are so wrapped up in their own world that they cannot see what Mr. Card is trying to illustrate: on both sides. The conservative side cannot see the benefits of the more liberal side, and the liberal side cannot see that there are benefits to the conservative. They cannot see balance. That is truly frightening.
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Hazimuka
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I enjoyed this completely improbable version of America where militant partisan feeling drives the nation once again to civil war. This takes the form of a leftist rebellion during the middle years of the Bush administration (after his and most of his administration's deaths in the first section) that conquers New York and some other liberal states. That sounds like a recipe for outcry from the Left, but as the characters stress over and over, it could have been a right-wing military coup just as easily.

My main quibble is the whole idea of the president's death. Some guys swim up the Potomac with a portable missile launcher. They set up, boom. West Wing gone. No tears are shed. The main characters are not shocked, they just move on with their duty. Since they're military men and trained to do that, I guess it's not surprising. But to me it felt numb.

So the heroic (right-wing) soldiers eventually end the leftist rebellion. Card's main message is that rabid partisanship is tearing this country apart. Although I enjoyed the book, I reject his premise. A good portion of partisan feeling is indicative of a healthy democracy--it merely means that there are ideals worth insulting the other side for, and that people hold these ideals. So what? Sure, there are popular figures like Al Franken and Sean Hannity and Limbaugh and Carville and Coulter and the rest, who take it to an extreme. But I don't see them assassinating the president. Sorry, Card, but I'll believe it when I see it.
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DraconioSchiffer
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Where do I even start with this book.

If you want my TLDR Review on this book here it is:

For anyone who has even a remote curiosity for this book. I ask of you to please look at his political and Homosexual views. Once you've look into that, you'll now know why I gave it a one star. END


Being a fan of his Ender Saga books I went into this book assuming that it would focus more on military combat than anything else. BOY, WAS I WRONG.

I read this book in 2022, a year and 7 months apart from Jan 6th, 2021. If you are currently reading this review or in the middle of reading the book, please remind yourself on what transpired that day in Washington D.C. And then compare what happened in that day vs. what happened in this book. Why did the "bad guys" from this book have to go to the process of doing what they did when they could have just walked into the capital and do exactly what they did in Jan 6th.

This book is completely whitewashing the U.S. involvement in the Middle East. It revels in what Card assumes to be a successful invasion of the Middle East. Card actively tries to justify the invasion of the Middle East. That the things the US did to insurgents were justified and needed just so he can write "in the name of freedom".

This book is what happens when a thin-blue line nationalist who only watches Fox News and never goes on the internet and assumes in this dumb mentality of Us vs. Them. The type of person that believes that they are in the silent majority (p.s. you are not silent, and you are not the majority) and are afraid that a group like ANTIFA will attack and silence them. That's what I call a neoconservative.
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SeaTactics
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Starting off this book screams right wing propaganda. However, if you give it a chance the author has a much greater message about anti-extremism on both sides of the political isle, that is at once prophetic and full of wisdom. It's still a bit right-wing for my overall taste but it's a damn good read and, as I'm sure Orson would like me to take from it, I don't think he's crazy or stupid or a horrible person but in fact, a "decent human being."

Set in George W. Bush administration America, Empire tells the story of a civil war fought between the Left and the Right. He points out ways in which both sides have become progressively more polarized, leaving tolerance and sanity behind. This book is frighteningly accurate in it's depiction of what extreme political polarization can do to a country, especially in the political climate of the Trump administration.

Give it a read and keep an open mind. It's worth it.
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MrFail
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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Libro que nos relata un futuro plausible donde una conspiración desencadena una guerra civil en EEUU entre "rojos y azules" (los colores están invertidos a los tradicionales izquierda y derecha de España) y unos protagonistas, muy especiales, emprenden una batalla contrarreloj por detener la guerra y restaurar la "democracia"... o tal vez sea todo un plan orquestado para lograr detener esa guerra civil y convertir EEUU en la nueva "Roma".
Interesante, llena de acción, sorpresas, conspiraciones y de ágil lectura. Su único fallo, deja el final "abierto".
Mi nota 4,5/5 por ese pequeño fallo (supongo que resuelto en la continuación, no publicada en España, o en el videojuego...).
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xGothimisalolix
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
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I never thought I could hate a book so much. I thought Battlefield Earth would be the low point of my reading life.

There is an interesting idea here, that's the thing. The idea of a New American Civil War (although I would say that the book's idea of it being Blue and Red is now outdated. If there is to be a Civil War in the US, it will be between Rich and Poor) is a potentially fascinating subject for a book. If done correctly. This means without bias. I may be left-leaning but I would be repelled by the same book if it was just as biased to the left as it clearly was to the Right.

But this book wasn't interested in telling a story, it was a political screed about how the Left and Liberals are somehow inherently evil and detrimental to the Great American Melting Pot. It was a story where Righter than Right Men stood up and said 'We are the best country in all of time and all of history and everyone else can go hang.'

It was a book which claimed that 'In Europe, the media always told people what to think, and they thought it.' Only a good ten or so pages after showing that the main character and Gary Stu only ever watches Fox News at home. It was at this point where I tossed the book out of the window, never to be seen again. It was a book which had an essay in the back detailing how 'Homosexual Marriage is somehow evil and is contributing to the moral collapse of America.'

This is a book which is not designed to appeal to intelligent audiences, like the works of John Ringo and other far-right SF Authors, it is only meant to appeal to the types of people who thrill in reading passages where crew-cutted good guys kill anyone who isn't as Right-Wing as them, who spout bullshit ideas without a hint of irony. This is a book, like so many of this sort of gung-ho Military SF genre written by the kind of people who listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Fox News perform hideous crimes to the word 'News'. Where so many SF books show us the potential of humanity or the limitless reaches of the imagination, this particular genre of books only exists to do one thing. They only exist as the fetishistic wish-fulfillment to say 'we are right.'
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