4 ms·

Ender's Game is the best science fiction story (or story in general) I've ever read, and much of what makes it science fiction fades into the background as you

by dunstad 17y ago

Ender's Game is the best science fiction story (or story in general) I've ever read, and much of what makes it science fiction fades into the background as you read. The important thing when I read is the character, whom I can relate to, not the technology itself, which I can't.

unalone 17y ago
You need to get into more sci-fi and more literature. Ender's Game is just intro-level. It's got a plethora of problems, too: The more you read it, the more you realize what a deeply sick worldview it and its author have. I can still read some of the later books in the series, but Ender's Game nauseates me a little more every time I try. That said: Orson Scott Card is an excellent teacher, and his story collection Maps In A Mirror unveils a lot of his tips for writing well.
- dunstad 17y ago
  While I haven't read Maps In A Mirror, I did read Card's Characters and Viewpoint, and found it rather lackluster in its advice compared to Stephen King's memoir. Considering that I like Ender's Game more than most of King's work, I thought that was a bit odd. In response to your edit: sick in what way? I never got that sense.
  - JCThoughtscream 17y ago
    If you don't see anything wrong with Ender's Game, for your own sake, don't read anything of Card's past Speaker for the Dead. I loved Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow - but it gets harder to read them the more you're aware of Card's, uh, political stances. There's such thing as knowing an author too well. Namely, when it starts effecting your interpretation of his earlier works.
  - mattmaroon 17y ago
    I have to agree that On Writing was surprisingly good. I've read a few Stephen King novels and have mixed feelings about him, but that was probably the most helpful writing advice I've yet come across.
  - unalone 17y ago
    King's one of the great 80s writers. He's not at his peak anymore, but when he started he was one of the best. Ender's Game can be read as a genocide apologist novel. I don't totally buy that, but it does espouse a universe in which smart people are allowed to kill their enemies gruesomely and not be punished. It's also almost sociopathic in the way it revolves around Ender. He's the center of the entire universe. Card's politics don't shine out as much in it, which is why it's only slowly decayed with many, many rereads, but it's there. He's very xenophobic — he excuses disliking foreigners with the excuse of "Other people think I'm xenophobic but secretly they're all very evil", but it's straightfaced enough that you don't notice it until you've read his later bigoted stuff and come back to it. It does avoid his religion and his sexism, though, which is good; later parts of the series aren't spared. Not to say the series isn't a great young adult read: Speaker For The Dead introduced me to maturer themes in SF/F in the first place, and the Bean parallel novels are delightful fun military strategy reads. But they're very flawed, sometimes irreparably so.
  - Dove 17y ago
    sick in what way? I think the primary characteristic of Card's writings is that he likes to explore the nasty, and a lot of the time he's apologizing for it. Ender's Game is about murder writ small and large, and the provocative question it asks is whether you can blame Ender for what he did. Hart's Hope does that with adultury; Pastwatch with slavery and cultural imperialism. Even when he's not that provocative, the world just tends to be nasty and not always in a very redeeming way. Kingsmeat and Unaccompanied Sonata may be the worst offenders. Asimov's stories are about reason triumphing over puzzles, and Heinlein's are about facing tough decisions with a bold face. But Card's are about characters who wrestle with the guilt and psychological problems they inherit from living through twisted circumstances in a twisted world and can you really blame them for what they did? As a teenager, I thought that was interesting. I thought it was deep and morally provocative and philosophically enlightening, I thought the characters were even admirable. As an adult, I mostly find it tragic and morally hasty. I'd rather read about heroes and courage and reason and responsibility than guilt and pain and evasion.
    - ephermata 17y ago
      I actually thought "Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory" was "worse" than Unaccompanied Sonata. Still I wish he'd write more short stories like that...they're more engaging than the novels I've seen recently from him.
      - Dove 17y ago
        Fair. It depends on what bothers you, I suppose. Now that I think about it, "A Thousand Deaths" was also pretty disturbing. I suppose I shouldn't be so judgmental in my description. Whether you like or dislike those types of stories, they are good illustrations of why some people find Card's writing disturbing. Then again, some people like to be disturbed. I might go so far as to say that is the point of his stories in the first place.
- mattmaroon 17y ago
  Yeah I think Card is at best a mediocre writer. And I thought that before I knew he was an ultra-right-wing nutjob. The problem with sci-fi and fantasy is that because they're so niche, and because so many people are predisposed to liking them based on subject area alone, the average successful writer makes even Dan Brown look like Charles Dickens. That makes Card look good by comparison because he isn't a bad writer (certainly far better than Brown) and most in the genre are.
  - unalone 17y ago
    That's a good way of putting it. For all his flaws, Card is an actual writer. Many of his contemporaries never were. Of course, there's legitimate literate science fiction out there that's among the best literature of the century. Frank Herbert and Philip Dick are going to be known as some of the greatest forces in writing; Isaac Asimov wasn't a brilliant prosist but conceptually he was in a league of his own.
- billswift 17y ago
  The original novella was better than the novel, which I don't often say, I like all the extra little details that work their way into longer works. Card just got worse and worse as he went along.

by dunstad 17y ago

unalone 17y ago

You need to get into more sci-fi and more literature. Ender's Game is just intro-level. It's got a plethora of problems, too: The more you read it, the more you realize what a deeply sick worldview it and its author have. I can still read some of the later books in the series, but Ender's Game nauseates me a little more every time I try. That said: Orson Scott Card is an excellent teacher, and his story collection Maps In A Mirror unveils a lot of his tips for writing well.

dunstad 17y ago
While I haven't read Maps In A Mirror, I did read Card's Characters and Viewpoint, and found it rather lackluster in its advice compared to Stephen King's memoir. Considering that I like Ender's Game more than most of King's work, I thought that was a bit odd. In response to your edit: sick in what way? I never got that sense.
- JCThoughtscream 17y ago
  If you don't see anything wrong with Ender's Game, for your own sake, don't read anything of Card's past Speaker for the Dead. I loved Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow - but it gets harder to read them the more you're aware of Card's, uh, political stances. There's such thing as knowing an author too well. Namely, when it starts effecting your interpretation of his earlier works.
- mattmaroon 17y ago
  I have to agree that On Writing was surprisingly good. I've read a few Stephen King novels and have mixed feelings about him, but that was probably the most helpful writing advice I've yet come across.
- unalone 17y ago
  King's one of the great 80s writers. He's not at his peak anymore, but when he started he was one of the best. Ender's Game can be read as a genocide apologist novel. I don't totally buy that, but it does espouse a universe in which smart people are allowed to kill their enemies gruesomely and not be punished. It's also almost sociopathic in the way it revolves around Ender. He's the center of the entire universe. Card's politics don't shine out as much in it, which is why it's only slowly decayed with many, many rereads, but it's there. He's very xenophobic — he excuses disliking foreigners with the excuse of "Other people think I'm xenophobic but secretly they're all very evil", but it's straightfaced enough that you don't notice it until you've read his later bigoted stuff and come back to it. It does avoid his religion and his sexism, though, which is good; later parts of the series aren't spared. Not to say the series isn't a great young adult read: Speaker For The Dead introduced me to maturer themes in SF/F in the first place, and the Bean parallel novels are delightful fun military strategy reads. But they're very flawed, sometimes irreparably so.
- Dove 17y ago
  sick in what way? I think the primary characteristic of Card's writings is that he likes to explore the nasty, and a lot of the time he's apologizing for it. Ender's Game is about murder writ small and large, and the provocative question it asks is whether you can blame Ender for what he did. Hart's Hope does that with adultury; Pastwatch with slavery and cultural imperialism. Even when he's not that provocative, the world just tends to be nasty and not always in a very redeeming way. Kingsmeat and Unaccompanied Sonata may be the worst offenders. Asimov's stories are about reason triumphing over puzzles, and Heinlein's are about facing tough decisions with a bold face. But Card's are about characters who wrestle with the guilt and psychological problems they inherit from living through twisted circumstances in a twisted world and can you really blame them for what they did? As a teenager, I thought that was interesting. I thought it was deep and morally provocative and philosophically enlightening, I thought the characters were even admirable. As an adult, I mostly find it tragic and morally hasty. I'd rather read about heroes and courage and reason and responsibility than guilt and pain and evasion.
  - ephermata 17y ago
    I actually thought "Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory" was "worse" than Unaccompanied Sonata. Still I wish he'd write more short stories like that...they're more engaging than the novels I've seen recently from him.
    - Dove 17y ago
      Fair. It depends on what bothers you, I suppose. Now that I think about it, "A Thousand Deaths" was also pretty disturbing. I suppose I shouldn't be so judgmental in my description. Whether you like or dislike those types of stories, they are good illustrations of why some people find Card's writing disturbing. Then again, some people like to be disturbed. I might go so far as to say that is the point of his stories in the first place.
mattmaroon 17y ago
Yeah I think Card is at best a mediocre writer. And I thought that before I knew he was an ultra-right-wing nutjob. The problem with sci-fi and fantasy is that because they're so niche, and because so many people are predisposed to liking them based on subject area alone, the average successful writer makes even Dan Brown look like Charles Dickens. That makes Card look good by comparison because he isn't a bad writer (certainly far better than Brown) and most in the genre are.
- unalone 17y ago
  That's a good way of putting it. For all his flaws, Card is an actual writer. Many of his contemporaries never were. Of course, there's legitimate literate science fiction out there that's among the best literature of the century. Frank Herbert and Philip Dick are going to be known as some of the greatest forces in writing; Isaac Asimov wasn't a brilliant prosist but conceptually he was in a league of his own.
billswift 17y ago
The original novella was better than the novel, which I don't often say, I like all the extra little details that work their way into longer works. Card just got worse and worse as he went along.