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Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game
- quandrum 15y agoIt's hard to see an author so defensive about their work. There will always be naysayers. Ender's game has persisted for so long in a way that so many of it's peers hasn't. We have to remember that negative experiences effect our users more, and complaints will in general outnumber the praise, even if the the number of users who are unhappy are outnumbered by happy users by orders of magnitude. Alternatively, haters gonna hate.
- mattdeboard 15y agoI don't find it challenging or difficult or upsetting at all to see an artist vigorously defend his work. What I find "hard" is someone poo-pooing another person's passionate defense of something they care about.
- icedpulleys 15y agoYou don't have to put quotation marks around hard; one of its definitions is an adjective meaning painful or difficult to endure.
- sp332 15y agoGP used quotation marks because it was a quote.
- hugh3 15y agoUnfortunately does nothing to change my view that authors should probably keep away from their own reviews. If he'd had some brilliant new insight that would be one thing, but instead he just comes off as slightly more defensive than anyone who has sold tens of millions of books should. I guess it was 1999 when this was written, though, so the norms for online reviews had not yet been established.
- mcritz 15y agoI felt similarly. “Why not write a blog post?” I thought.
- saraid216 15y agoA blog post in 1999 is asking a little much.
- starwed 15y agoBut then again, Ender's Game included the general idea of blogs as a plot point... (Not sure what else you would classify Peter/Valentine's self-published online essays as.)
- icarus_drowning 15y agoAren't they explicitly described as forum postings?
- a1k0n 15y agoYeah, it's described as something more akin to Usenet than anything else from what I remember.
- starwed 15y agoYeah, they were using some use-net like technology to post, since the web wasn't really around when the book was written. I'd argue they carried the same social role as blogs. To me, the key vision is that online, self-published essays could be widely read and influential. -edit- Actually referencing the book, they do eventually become part of "newsnets", being paid for their work and gaining a wider audience. It also describes them using temporary anonymous accounts, injecting deliberately inflammatory comments into discussions to provoke a response. >_>
- rdl 15y agoYes. And, sadly, USENET still has a lot of ways it was superior to current web-based forums, blogs, etc.
- andrewvc 15y agoI'll just point out that the thing I didn't like about enders game was that the book felt too monotone. It has a great twist at the end, but everything leading up to it is linear, predictable, and while initially exciting, quickly becomes uninteresting.
- mattdeboard 15y agoI've read through Ender's Game more times than I can count, and have worn through two paperback copies. It is a powerful book with plenty of great object lessons. Quality is, of course, in the eye of the beholder.
- SoftwareMaven 15y agoI really don't think people should be down-voted for writing a dissenting, non-inflammatory opinion. I really liked Ender's Game (it is on my top 10 list, in fact), but I would absolutely hate living in a world where everybody loved it (even worse would be a world that people felt they couldn't express their dislike for fear of upsetting others).
- hugh3 15y agoI think that Ender's Game is one of those books whose appeal is largely independent of its literary merits. The people who love it really love it because they identify with it, it speaks to them, and if you don't identify with it then it's just some random okay sort of sci-fi story about space battles. I never really identified with it, but maybe if I'd read it at twelve instead of 24 then I would have. (Though I'm kinda glad I didn't.) I say this not to disparage the book. A fairly well-written book that speaks to a lot of people is much better than a very well-crafted book that speaks to nobody (I'm looking at you, Mr Joyce). And I'm sure there are relatively crappy works of art that I like just because I identify with 'em. But Ender's Game is just one of those love-it-or-go-meh-at-it books.
- tedunangst 15y agoThat happens with short stories that become novels. If the short story was good enough to be worth converting to a novel, it already has everything it needs to be great. What more can you add?
- pitdesi 15y agoI love Ender's Game and all of OSC's other books, but it seems like he might be a terrible guy... more on that in this very interesting interview: http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/card http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/card
- hugh3 15y agoIs he actually a terrible person, or merely one who happens to have unpopular opinions?
- burgerbrain 15y agoIn my humble opinion, it is not unreasonable to judge a person by their publicly stated opinions.
- hugh3 15y agoBut where do you draw the line between "Opinions with which I disagree" and "Opinions which make you a bad person if you hold them"? I tend to classify really silly opinions as "loopy" rather than "evil", as long as they don't actually advocate violence or similar. OSC has loopy opinions, not immoral ones.
- burgerbrain 15y agoHateful and discriminatory seems like a decent line to me, but hey, its a judgement call. Decide for yourself.
- michaeldhopkins 15y agoYou don't want this recursion to apply to you too. Saying a person who says someone is terrible is terrible puts you next in line. Fortunately for both of us I don't think you're terrible, just a little too excited to dislike someone.
- burgerbrain 15y agoThe problem with Scott Card is that he substitutes proper character development with "let's make all the characters naive children who eventually realize all the adults are manipulative". Its a total copout, and he doesn't just do it wth the ender books. Oh yeah, that and his crazy is often showing...
- danilocampos 15y ago> "let's make all the characters naive children who eventually realize all the adults are manipulative". I can't agree. Speaker for the Dead (and sequels) characters have a lot of complexity in their arcs – perhaps because they're mostly not children. I'd say the Speaker series is a perfect example of how to create characters with nuance, depth and multiple motivations.
- burgerbrain 15y agoCheck out 'A Memory of Earth'. (Or better yet, don't. It, enders game, and enders shadow all did it. Three strikes and you're out imho, certainly when one of them is the book the author is known for)
- chc 15y agoThree books out of thirty. And two of those books are the same story told from the perspective of different characters. And although that is part of the plot of those books, I don't see how you can say that's all there is to those characters. The pivotal moments in Ender's life are his acts of violence, not the adults' manipulation. And the other isn't really about naive children realizing adults are manipulative, either — the characters just happen to be young. Volemak (the main adult in the story) actually is a good man, and the children who oppose him are the antagonists. Seriously, I have a laundry list of complaints about Card's writing (the Homecoming series in particular), but your complaints seem pretty shallow and sound like you're levying heavy criticism without ever giving them a chance.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
- ab9 15y ago"No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading." Is that really true? The first Orwell book I read (Homage to Catalonia) was required for a history class -- a class that had previously assigned some truly awful literature. So I was pessimistic and I read it grudgingly at first. But halfway through the book, I realized I loved it.
- chc 15y agoI was actually a hostile reader the first time I read Ender's Game. I was totally turned off by the horrible cover and not very interested in reading it, but it was assigned for school, so I read it and it became one of my favorite books.
- GrantS 15y agoThe original Ender's Game series covers are some of the best science fiction art I've ever seen, by an amazing artist named John Harris (examples below). Did your edition have a different cover? Ender's Game: http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2009/j_harris_02.jpg http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2009/j_harris_... Speaker for the Dead: http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2009/j_harris_05.jpg http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2009/j_harris_... Children of the Mind: http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2009/j_harris_06.jpg http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/2009/j_harris_... More art by John Harris here (not my blog): http://colorcubic.com/2010/09/07/the-science-fiction-art-of-john-harris/ http://colorcubic.com/2010/09/07/the-science-fiction-art-of-...
- rubergly 15y agoI don't think the claim is that no book can survive any hostile reading, but that you can always approach a book with enough hostility to ruin it.
- ab9 15y agoThat's not how I interpret him. Here's the quotation with more context: "Of course, those who approached Ender's Game skeptically or because they were 'forced' to read it can hardly imagine their response is valid for those who read it as volunteers or with belief: No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading."
- latch 15y agoI always thought of Ender's Game of something like a child's book. Something like Harry Potter to LoTRs. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, I mean, Harry Potter got a whole bunch of people reading. But seeing this explanation helps me better understand why I feel like that, and what it means. I'd call this an analysis more than a review. Whatever you think it is, I found it a pretty honest and open piece coming from someone who has such a personal stake in the book.
- Stormbringer 15y agoThe short story was much better. There is speculation that the full length novel was ghost written. Essentially somebody asked Card a bunch of questions about it, and he didn't know the answers to any of his questions... see also: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/5/28/22428/7034 http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/5/28/22428/7034 NB: I'm not claiming it's true, just pointing out that a claim has been made
- nl 15y agoI call BS on premise of that link, and on the original essay (which is now online: http://peachfront.diaryland.com/enderhitlte.html http://peachfront.diaryland.com/enderhitlte.html) Claims like this fail the Occam's Razor test: I've seen Elaine's notes and heard Card on the phone, and there is no doubt in my mind that the Hitler Hypothesis is correct; it is simply impossible that Ender's Game and Speaker were written by someone who did not have a very detailed knowledge of Adolph Hitler's life. There are very exact parallels in there that you wouldn't even notice unless you read the footnotes to the most detailed Hitler biographies. I also tend to believe that Card does not have that level of knowledge about Hitler. It would be simpler to assume that a story where a person causes the extinction of a species would have some similarities with a war in which genocide occurred. I've read Card's books and I have reasonable knowledge of Hitler and I didn't notice any particular parallel. I suspect that the claim that he doesn't know his own books comes more from a reluctance to engage in a telephone debate rather than the idea that he didn't write them I say that as someone who really liked Ender's Game, but thought Speaker for the Dead was crap. I had always assumed that Speaker for the Dead had some kind of Mormon message, but I think these accusations go way too far and are unsupported by the evidence.
- nhebb 15y agoI found that the less I put on the stage, the more the audience would imagine a much more compelling set than I could ever build Analogous to Card's statement, lately I've come to realize that I like movies better when they don't explicitly tell you everything. I think a good formula for writing is to lay all the facts out, then remove one or two of them from the script.
- CWuestefeld 15y agoI'd almost agree with you, but as you describe it, the result would just be deus ex machina. It's not fair to just pull a resolution out of your butt, that couldn't possibly have been predicted. Better to have all the facts there, but not in your face. Commonly, a film with focus on a key point, or dwell on an image, to ensure that the viewer gets it, and I think that's a mistake. A good example of a movie that gets it right is Silence of the Lambs, in which all the information is there, but the viewer needs to separate the wheat from the chaff.
- nhebb 15y agoI didn't mean deux ex machina. You can provide the information and let the audience infer the result, or you can explicitly show the result. As you build the storyline and subplots, judiciously allowing the audience to interpret what happened at intermediate points in the story or at the end can make it more interesting than simply laying it all out.
- alex_c 15y agoIt's always a balancing act. Chances are any specific level of detail will belabor the point for some readers/watchers, while simultaneously leaving others in the dark.
- mkramlich 15y agoVery classy. Plus gives a little insight into how a writer approaches it as a craft. Love to read things like this.
- cschmidt 15y agoIt is a little funny to see Ender's Game on HN today. Tomorrow I'm going on a fishing trip with my 10 year old son. As our evening entertainment, he wanted me to read him Ender's Game. I've got the book already packed in my bag.