ScienceFiction novel by OrsonScottCard? (who proceeded to write a bunch of sequels). MoonShadow has just read it and suggests that anyone who hasn't yet do so.
However, the sequels should be approached with caution. --Angoel
Hm. Well, I'm about a quarter of the way into Speaker For The Dead, and am enjoying it so far.. - MoonShadow
That one is good, albeit in a different way to EndersGame; however, it doesn't tie up the plot ends. The sequel, Xenocide, is interesting, but its plot is unsatisfying and forced. The sequel to that, Children of the Mind, may have redeeming qualities, but I couldn't bring myself to read far enough to find them. Regarding the other series, Ender's Shadow is good, although I found the extra information changed Ender's Game for the worse. The sequel to that had a bad guy that was sufficiently unconvincing that I was not interested in reading further. --Angoel
The short story is good. And I like Xenophobia, but I agree -- Senji
I'll have to disagree on xenophobia. It was just trite throughout. --Vitenka
The first book is indeed a classic. The second series, following Bean (I think the first book in it is "Ender's Shadow") is meant to be quite good, from what I've heard? --AlexChurchill
[A rant], mainly on OrsonScottCard? which I thought I would post here simply because I read it at roughly the same time this page was edited... --K
She raises an interesting point. How much do we expect authors to actually hold the views they glorify in their writing? How much do we expect to be able to extrapolate about authors from their writing? I was raised in a country where the best SF/F was seen as a tool for political expression, a platform for one's opinions about the world, the government, morals.. usually opinions that would be impolitic in other contexts (though even with SF/F, a lot of books I have read were banned when first written and not published in their authors' lifetimes); usually quite thinly veiled. While censorship does not work the same way in the west, SF/F with not-so-subtle undertones = and authors with a bone to pick - are certainly not absent here: AldousHuxley?, GeorgeOrwell, CSLewis, AnnePerry?, DianeDuane?, PhilipPullman?.. and I had certainly always assumed that it would be unusual for the author of a lengthy novel to devote much effort to making the result of reading the text as a whole be the promotion of a view they do not themselves hold; yet how much is this actually true? - MoonShadow
I think OrsonScottCard? may be a special case, in that he was raised in a fairly weird religion (Mormon), and feels obliged now and then to write things that support its views. I suspect he may be treating it as a technical challenge. --DR
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