Saturday, March 25, 2006

Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

I'm going to be writing some science fiction the next couple of years so I thought I'd start out my sci-fi "career" the right way by reading some of the classics. (I've read plenty of Star Trek novels and a few of the older classics by Poe, Hawthorne, Stevenson, et al). I picked up Orson Scott Card's novel Ender's Game. All I can say is "Man, is this stuff like crack or what?"

If you know how slowly I read, you'll know that I've read 100 pages in less than 24 hours (along with four short stories from a certain anthology I'll be mentioning later AND writing 3,000 words for my latest effort) means I'm fully engrossed. If you haven't read it, pick it up. That's an order, launchy!

2 Comments:

Blogger Brett Battles said...

If you like Ender's Game, you'll be interested in Ender's Shadow. Basically telling the same story again only from Bean's point of view. There are two or three more Shadow books after that, but Ender's Shadow is the best (after Ender's Game, of course), and you may want to stop there.

Sci Fi was my first love as a kid and I still through in a couple novels to read each year.

I blame my dad.

March 25, 2006 7:15 PM  
Blogger Steve Hockensmith said...

I also grew up reading SF and still enjoy jumping back into that world from time to time. Some personal faves: A Canticle for Leibowitz, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and The Space Merchants. Not that anyone asked, but who can resist a personal Best Of list when they've got an excuse for one?

I'm with Brett: Ender's Game is great, the follow-ups (the ones I read, anyway) merely good. But hey -- "good" is a fine thing to be!

A (possibly) interesting topic of discussion: Card is actually a writer I'll never read again because of a non-fiction piece he wrote. It was a newspaper editorial on a political topic, and it enraged and personally offended me so much it ruined Card for me forever. Every time I think of the guy, I think of that essay, and I get mad all over again. I couldn't stand reading a book by him now: It usually takes me about two weeks to read a novel, and who wants to be pissed off for two weeks straight? Maybe that's petty of me, but...well, I can't help how I feel.

So I guess that goes to show how dangerous blogging could possibly be. Not that you get all controversial on us, Steven. You don't (on this blog, anyway). But I'm guessing you have strong convictions about certain things. I assume it's been a deliberate choice to keep this blog apolitical...?

-Steve

March 26, 2006 11:07 PM  

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