Xenocide

Ender’s series has long been one of my favorite in the sci-fi genre and that is why I am slowly working through the series long after I have moved on from most of my childhood favorites. There was something about Ender’s world - even for a reader who was most at home with the most elaborate of high fantasy and sci-fi, the subdued world of Ender had a different sort of fascination. It did not try to sell a fancy world or any fancy technology or an advanced race of humans - none of the regular tropes. It was the most human of sci-fi stories in a way - only dealing with the fundamentals, with life and death alone and with how to deal with them. True it was set in a fascinating slot to tell this story but it asked nothing of the reader, no suspension of belief, no acceptance of an distinct world, it only asked the reader to connect with Ender.

Then Uncle Orson had the brilliant idea to take this brilliant story line and merge with a rejected story from his early career and mix in all sort of mumbo-jumbo. He took the big leap that so many sci-fi authors love to take - straight into ancient hindu philosophy - which is a very tempting and logical end space for all of sci-fi. In fact, you will not find a more cogent and perfect sci-fi universe. But that is no excuse for so throughly mixing it up with a series that was going so perfectly.

Worse, just when I promised myself that I will wrap up this series with this book, Orson throws at me the most absurdly taunting sort of conclusion and then has the nerve to come along with an afterword and tell me slyly that the best way to earn more from a book is to split it in two. So bingo, please read the next one and sorry to leave you hanging. And true to the spirit of Ender, I am pretty sure I will.

5.0 stars. I was amazed by how good this book is. Speaker for the Dead is one of my all time favorite books and this book picks up right where Speaker left off. Superb characters, amazingly orginal concepts of life and the universe and intense ethical debate (Card's strong suit) highlight this exceptional novel. Highly recommended.

Nominee: Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1992)
Nominee: Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1992)

Short off topic review - I often wonder when someone does something legendary did they know what they were doing was going to be epic, or did they just fluke it?

After reading this, Enders game seems more of a fluke to me, then something OSC knew would be legendary. Even more so when you hear his vile homophobic remarks and his wild conspiracies about Obama. I don't know at what point OSC came to Jesus, but this level of Christianity in this book is overwhelming, and no real counter argument is ever made to it. Especially after the mocking tone EG had to religion. I figure he must of had a revival in his life. Now I dont mind Christianity being in books, I just wish it was questioned by the semi intelligent beings in the novel. Even more so when its the only religion being brought to a planet.

I really wanted to love this series. The first books ending really meant a lot to me. (Not so much all the Mary sue'ing at the start) but the real first contact and the redemption.
The 2nd book held my interest, and I enjoyed the meeting between the piggies and Ender, but the 3rd book? meh... way too preachy.

This really needed a Editor to trim 100 pages of it, there is so much repetition of topics and convos that it gets dull re-hashing the same debates, "Is the virus a living being we could talk too?"

Xenocide (Ender's Saga, #3)by Orson Scott Card
A rather philosophical tome. Found it very interesting how an intricate debate can take place in Orson's imagination a three way species genocide and who really deserves to exist.

Human, bug and an intelligent tree. Just a thinking tree is very different on its own, let alone a tree that wants to travel into space. Orson does like to over explain but that's how he is, so far and its my second outing with him.

** spoiler alert ** How many stars do you give a book that starts off good, wanders around dully in the middle, and then becomes offensively horrible at the end? Do you average 5, 3, and 1 star? Do you give it 2 because of the overall picture? Do you give it 1 because it's doubly bad to start out promising and then mislead the reader?

I'm in the last category.

I'm 90% finished, and I think I'm not going to make it much further. I loved the first two books, but this one is sort of awful. It started out with a good mystery: who are the gods and how does this planet relate to the other, but that got resolved about 3/4 of the way through the book, somehow the struggles on Lusitania seem mostly tedious and obnoxious. All of this is fine though, all it did was impact my reading speed. Instead of chewing through the book, I read it at a casual pace. On the other hand, what happens at about 90% of the way through the book appeals only to people who have absolutely no grasp of science, or buy into that whole J.Z. Knight (the frustrated housewife who started channelling a 35000 opponent of atlantis and suddenly got rich) cult recruitment film: What the Bleep do we know?

Wow. It took me so long to finish this book after racing through the previous portion of this series. It's really too bad because Orson Scott Card's ideas are definitely worth exploring -- some of the most thought provoking and original of the ones that I have read in my limited science fiction repertoire. Card is truly one of the most brilliant writers I have had the pleasure of reading.

That said, certain portions of the book I just found to be tedious. I finally finished this only after borrowing the audio version from the library and listening to it during my commutes. Certain notes of the book were hit too many times: the constant bickering between the family on Lusitania (you know they'll eventually get their act together) and the sometimes seemingly endless discussions about the nature of philotic connections come to mind. I also find fault with the fact that it is obvious artificial intelligence and the brilliant scientists of Lusitania will solve the scientific issues faced in the book, making the buildup of suspense difficult.

Nevertheless it's worth it to read the book. What Card does would be foolhardy for most writers, but for him it works. How many writers do you know that can write convincing dialogue and philosophy for the most intelligent people to populate a planet of geniuses? I can only imagine how truly amazing this book would have been if a bit shorter and more tightly constructed.

Storyline: 1/5
Characters: 3/5
Writing Style: 3/5
World: 2/5

I'd read a lot of the Ender's Saga books several years ago and had accidentally skipped from Speaker of the Dead (#2) to Children of the Mind (#4). I realized my mistake early on in Children of the Mind, but I already had the book checked out and was at a place and in a time where it wouldn't have been easy to swap it out for Xenocide, the one I should have been reading after Speaker of the Dead. So I skipped from two to four and never felt that I suffered much from it. I've been away from the Ender books for long enough now though that I wonder if I would think of them the same way I had before. I've read a lot more science fiction in the time since, and I was curious what I'd think of Card now. So I went back to fill in this gap and see how the Enderverse impresses me now.

There's a lot to like about Orson Scott Card and Ender's Saga. Card shows here that he is a very capable writer, very diligent and careful to make things clear. His writing is not flowery, but it is very effective at conveying the emotions, conflicts, or questions of concern. The characters are realized, many of them frustratingly so because he calls forth very flawed personalities and traits in what are otherwise good people. He directly confronts a lot of philosophical or ethical themes centering on justice and injustice. This is also a book that conveys a love of science fiction, using science to expand the horizons of human civilization and trying to ground that science in reality, goading the reader to will it plausible. This, then, is a carefully written and contemplative science fiction.

There's a lot to dislike about Xenocide as well. Card is never one to be hurried, always organized and with a plan to explain everything and to readers of every reading level. The writing, as a consequence, is oftentimes plodding, character attributes or the stakes of a situation laboriously constructed when far simpler expositions would have been just as effective. It is easy to pick up the books and read them in any order because Card is careful to include enough backstory and explanation of past events to help new readers. For old readers, however, this slows the pace even further. There were also a few too many dislikeable characters in the story. I appreciate flawed, complex characters, but you can only have so many before it becomes cumbersome to try to relate to and empathize with them. The ethical themes and dilemmas Card constructs, too, are too numerous and too big to adequately consider. Card does a great job situating the philosophical problems in real social situations with crises where decisions will have truly significant effects. There's no climax, clarity, or resolutions to these dilemmas, though, not even a firm conclusion that they're irresolvable. Card deftly sketches the terms of the debate and the importance of the problems and solutions, but one is simply exhausted at the end of it and left feeling that nothing was learned or accomplished. The science fiction problem-solving was the same way. Detailed, very easy to read discussions of the scientific or metaphysical properties at work, but at some point you wonder if it is worth all the effort to elaborately comprehend something that is so obviously fantastical. If the negatives can be summed in a word it would be laborious.

I wonder if Card stand-alone novels would be any better. Everything I've read by him has been part of a series, and he moseys through the telling knowing that he has another book (or two or five) afterward where he can bring things together or get to the exciting parts of the story. Card remains an author I wouldn't avoid but neither would I aggressively seek out.

*Spoilers a cascoporro, leer bajo tu responsabilidad*
Nota: 4’5-5 (solo porque soy reticente a poner cincos a la brava)

Madre mía. Qué experiencia. Creo que nunca había leído algo parecido.
Si leéis mi reseña sobre el primer libro de la colección se puede apreciar una evolución IMPRESIONANTE. Como ya dije en el anterior libro, este junto con el segundo, bien podrían haber sido independientes, pero es que el primer libro era muy necesario y yo he necesitado un tiempo de maduración para darme cuenta. Desde lo personal, entiendo que a la gente no le haya gustado mucho porque es un libro muy bueno como forma de escapismo, pero para los que no sean tan fans del autor que relfexiona para sí mismo en las novelas, obviamente, esta diserción es por decir algo, presuntuosa (aunque hay grandes momentos como cuando los humanos atacan a los pequeninos y éstos luego les perdonan porque saben que no todos son iguales). A mí ha habido momentos de no poder despegar los ojos del libro o en momentos de ansiedad o angustia estirar el brazo para sumergirme de nuevo en Lusitania. También opino que como libro de autoexploración es maravilloso, a mí me ha hecho pensar mucho, y aunque no estoy de acuerdo en algunas cosas está muy bien como ‘libro que habla solo’. Cabe decir que me ha encantado de todas maneras porque habla de problemas cotidianos pero con naves espaciales y alienígenas.

Poniendome ya en plan específico, voy a empezar por lo más fácil: Ender y Novinha. No sé si es porque estoy muy entrenada en novela de romance trasnochado, pero no tienen ningún momento que te haga quererlos como pareja. Novinha desde luego cae mal todo el libro, y me he encontrado en algunos puntos deseando que la mataran (lo siento, mi mente sádica), el hecho de que encima odiara a la estupenda y magnífica Jane me supera, para sumarle un plus. La separación me ha dado, para qué engañarnos, igual. Lo único que me ha gustado de esto ha sido cuando Ender pierde un poco los estribos. Pareja con potencial malgastado.

Y hablando de romaces, por el otro lado tenemos Jakt-Valentine que me han dado mucho en lo que pensar. Almas gemelas que si no fuera por todo lo vivido nunca se hubieran conocido, separados por más de dos mil años. Son monísimos que prácticamente la imagen idónea del amor. ÉL RENUNCIA AL MAR POR ELLA. Es que es todo maravilloso y me encantan.

Luego, el que los capítulos empiecen con conversación pequenino-insector es genial, súper ingenioso. Tienen citas verdaderamente bonitas, pero sin lugar a dudas mi favorita es cuando hablan de cómo los humanos soñamos. Todo muy lacrimógeno, aunque deberían ver qué sueños son los que tenemos JAJAJAJA.

Miro. Miro mi marido. Qué buen personaje. Ela casi me gusta tanto como él, pero es que creo que después de Olhado (ME POSTRO ANTE TI) es mi personaje favorito. Le dice las cosas claras a la gente y al final se sale con la suya, tener un cuerpo nuevo (y aunque sea una meta muy superficial en verdad conlleva otras miles de ventajas además de volver a ser el de antes).

La trama pues qué voy a decir: ESPECTACULAR. Aunque los habitantes de Sendero fueran un poco ‘porculeros’, de esos hay hasta en Lusitania (cof, Grego, cof, Quara). Lo de la descolada es impresionante y lo de los dioses generados por el DOC me parece otro nivel de sátira.

Tema Quim, en fin. Lloro. Pero ya me estoy acostumbrando, Nehemia está reciente todavía y ya me las veo venir a kilómetros. En cuanto un personaje que antes era ‘meh’ y ahora es ‘TE QUIERO’ lo van a matar. Y es una pena, porque Quim ya estaba diciendo verdades a Miro y estaba empezando el ‘healing arch’ lo cual lo hacía todavía más ‘querible’. Su muerte fue muy triste y me dio mucha pena porque había logrado madurar ya y todo, uno de los mejores Ribeira (aunque eso es fácil porque jodo, menuda familia).

Bueno, BUENO. Peter 2.0 y Valentine malrollera. Qué miedo. JAJAJAJJA, es que menudo momentazo Ender en plan ‘oh shit’. Peter por supuesto a su bola dando por culo, pero qué se le va a hacer (tremendo rizz que tiene, también te digo, ¿eso también es tuyo, Ender? Cómo se liga a la Wang-mu).

Y por último menciones especiales: Valentine, Ela, Plikt y Olhado. Mis protegidos. Todos han tocado y hundido nervios míos durante la lectura. Olhado en especial, con su charla con Valentine sobre Ender y cómo se llaman ‘padre’ e ‘hijo’. ¿Quién pudiera ser Jacqueline?

Pedazo libro.