has anyone ever read enders game or speaker for the dead?

16 responses total.

these books are you orson scott card

Yup.  I've now read four in the 'series': Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead,
Xenocide and Ender's Shadow.

I also enjoyed his Songhouse seris.

  there's more than one of those?

Think so.  Possibly because I first read _Mikhail's_Songbird_ in Analog,
and then found a novel which included some before-and-after.

  Card seems to make a habit out of bookending short fiction and 
  then publishing it as a novel..

I've read the first two Ender books, but didn't get very far into Xenocide.

I recently re-read Enders Game, followed it up with Speaker for the Dead and
the Enders Shadow. I have yet to read any others in ther series. People who
have tell me it's probably not worth the time. Any opinions ?
I thought Enders Game was great, Speaker for the Dead was very good in a
different way and I'm still undecided about Enders Shadow. Having so recently
read Enders Game I felt Shaodw somehow detracted from the story.

After reading Ender's Shadow, I want to re-read at least Ender's Game.

I dunno; seeing some of the same events from a different view point doesn't
bother me.  And inconsistencies between such view points doesn't bother me,
either.

It's not inconsistencies or differnt view points that I'm thinkinbg about.
It was actually rather neat to "see" thigs from another viewpoint. Some of
what happens (trying not to spoil it for those have have not read both yet)
seems to diminish the role Ender played in his own book. It's not a rational
things, I'm just being "protective" of Ender.

Yeah, that's why I want to re-read Ender's Game.  Was Bean's report of the
final battle self-agrandizing?  I suspect not, but I want to check.

Children of the Mind was a fitting end to the series, I think.

Just so you know, Ender's Game is available in a special $3.99 paperback
edition. I think that Tor is picking up on Baen's popularity of their special
$1.99 novels.

Donna Minkowitz from Salon interviewed him last month, you can read the
interview here - http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/card/index.h
tml

  And then be sure to read Minkowitz's super-whiny story about how shocked
  [shocked!] she was to learn that Card, an openly Mormon writer who has
  hardly hidden any of his religious or social views, didn't share her 
  lesbian atheist views..  It's a really outstanding example of a person
  blinded by hero-worship.

Knowing his Mormon background, I'm amused that Card wrote "The Great Secular
Humanist Revival."

Could anybody explain what is so great, or good at all, about Orson 
Scott Card?  I have been puzzling over this for 23 years, ever since his 
first story appeared.  A cliched (even then!) plot about a video game 
whiz ("pinball wizard / there has to be a twist ...") whose games turn 
out (surprise surprise) to be real, it seemed to me to be a decent 
enough story with nothing new to add, but people were leaping in ecstasy 
over it.

Then came the novel of the same title ("Ender's Game"), featuring 
children so obnoxiously and unbelievably precocious that I could not 
stand an entire book in their company.  I'd even rather listen to 
Lazarus Long, if I had to.

  I don't know that I can help you as I'm not wildly impressed by
  his writing.  I think many people are attracted to his stories
  about characters who are undeniably better than the folks who
  surround them - smarter, more able, touched by the gods in some
  special way, often to an exaggerated degree.  Perhaps it's a
  wish-fulfillment thing to read a book and identify with characters
  who are so inherently superior to the common man..

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