As anybody who’s anybody knows, Card is the man. I’ve read well over 25 books by him and he is far and away the best writer I’ve read. Ever. As one could guess, Ender’s Game is, IMO, the best book of his, though I’ve really enjoyed Worthing Saga and Pastwatch: the Redemption of Christopher Columbus.
I wish I had time to write more, heck I could write a thesis on the guy, but I have class in…oh…13 minutes. So tell me what you think.
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
I think Card is a fairly good world builder, I did love the Ender saga. Being that his background as a Mormon missionary is unusual, he can take his stories in really interesting directions.
Always an entertaining read.
Though I have yet to read much by him, I have read Ender’s Game, which I throughly enjoyed. What I wondered is if the later books in the series kind of diluted the original like I’m afraid of, or if they truly measure up to it?
A friend of mine is constantly telling me that I need to read Enders Game (and IIRC, a couple other books related to this one). If I ever finish reading everything ever written by Kurt Vonnegut, I’ll give it a shot. Any recommendations as to which one to start with?
The only works by Card I’ve read are Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead. Both were excellent.
I found Card’s commentary on how he came to write Ender’s Game, and the feedback he received from academically gifted young people who read it to be particularly fascinating. I always love to read/hear authors talking about their work.
Card has been pretty solidly hit-and-miss with me. I either really like his stuff (Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, the first Alvin the Maker book) or I find it utterly forgettable (all the other Alvin books, Lost Boys, some other ones I can’t recall the names of). A matter of personal taste, I suppose.
I think that Card has a real knack for starting good series, but that they tend to degrade over time. For example, the Alvin Maker boks started off wonderfuly, but as the books came closer and closer to the stated aim of hte series–Alvin’s accension into a Messiah–they just sort of fall apart. I think I stopped at the next to last one, when I realized that the nothing at all had happened in the entire book. The Earth books were the same way–they started out fantastic, and sort of degenerated and started flailing about.
I think that Card has a fatal, fatal weakness as a writer. When he writes himself into a corner, he often takes the easy way out. Most noteably, he introduces new charecters or new elements late into a story. This is what happened with Xenocide and whatever the sequel to that was called. He had so many charecters running about, serving no real purpose in the story that the story became thin and streached–the damn book died from the same disease as the protaginist. I am seeing the same thing happen with the Shadow books–Now that Bean is on earth, Card just keeps on introducing us to new charecters and totally reinventing old charecters as he needs to make the next chapter happen.
I think that the reason Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow were so good is because the confines of the Battle School forced Card to play the story out within a limited cast of charecters, a limited number of settings. a limited number of years.
I do think that Ender’s Game is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Furthermore, it may just be the most accessible book I have ever read (no, scratch that, Alexander’s Westmark trilogy is a bit more accessible. But I digress.) My point is that Ender’s Game is a great book for the non-reader, and a great introduction to thinking about reading. He deals simply with hard issues without over-simplyfying or condecending. That is a hell of a thing to have accomplished. While nothing said in Ender’s Game is really that profound or original, it presents those messages in a way that anybody can understand them and go on to talk about them. (note: when I say “anybody” I am not using it as a code for “stupid people”. I mean that stupid people, smart people, average people, old people, young people–everyone–can enjoy the book).
I hope to be able to use Ender’ Game in the classroom over the course of my carreer. I’ve never met anyone who read it and didn’t like it or had trouble understanding it.
Everyone’s always going on about Ender’s Game…what about short stories, like Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory? Anyone read it? Sweet honey-glazed christ, is that story disturbing and nauseating…
That and what Manda JO wrote both mirror my sentiments. Card has moments of pure genius (that’s not an insult…I feel about Heinlein as EnderW24 feels about Card, and I’d describe Heinlein as having moments of pure genius too, albiet more of 'em :D), lots of good books, well drawn characters and the most readable damned prose this side of Heinlein, but as his series progress, they get weaker. I hated the self-absorbed character that Alvin Maker turned into in one of the later Alvin books, for example.
On the other hand, given the quality of Card’s prose, even when I don’t like the story, I’m enjoying the telling, so I don’t have too much to complain about.
And I’d pay $$$$$Big Bucks$$$$ to read a 3-way collaboration between Orson Scott Card, Spider Robinson and
George R.R. Martin (if only to watch Card and Robinson’s faces as Martin engages in his customary character abuse. 
)
Fenris
I very much enjoyed “Ender’s Game”, but don’t remember the series all that well beyond it. “Lost Boys” worked much better as a longish short story than it did as the novel he worked it up into later, and I also dug the first couple “Alvin Maker” books.
I’m also grateful to Card for something he said in an introduction to a collection of his short stories. He was commenting about being a Mormon, and the kind of views people will attribute because of that, and said essentially that he loves science fiction because it seems to him to be the only truly religious genre left. By that he meant not in “inspirational” stories, or witnessing, but in the true core of religion–the seeking for truth, for meaning. At the time I read it, I was still a teenager, firmly ensconced in my angriest atheist phase, and I had never seen that kind of definition of it before. It stuck, and I’m grateful for it.
That he wrote entertaining books beyond that was an even better bonus.
Just slightly off topic…
Isn’t there a movie of “Ender’s Game” in the works? Or is that just wishful-fanboy thinking?
Hmmm, refresh my memory? He’s sure done some disturbing short work. I’m remembering a story of an isolated colony that a couple aliens took over–one human cut a deal with them, and every night would go out, carve off pieces of the colonists’ bodies to cook up for the aliens’ dinner. Just about everyone had missing hands, legs, eyes, whatever. It was that or total extermination. When the cavalry came, the colony took it out on him, essentially carving him into legless, armless, jawless if I remember correctly, blinded trunk that they then kept alive.
Very short story, and extremely disturbing.
From “Ender’s Game” (the short story, not the novel) to Children of the Mind (the fourth and last book of the original saga) was twenty years real time, IIRC. I haven’t read enough Card to say if this is a general fault of his, but it seems that, in this case, he forgot what he was writing about, perhaps more than once (thus the vacillating about whether the buggers were really out to exterminate humanity, the sudden introduction of aiuas, and the sudden wrap-up that leaves us wondering just what the descoladors are about).
I have to agree with Manda JO. If I had one piece of advice I could send to Mr. Card, it would be:
Stop writing series.
At least for a while. He hasn’t got the long-term intricacies of the plot structure worked out with the elegance needed to support an epic. (See Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars series for an example of tight epic plotting). I mean, I love his work, and his characters are great, but I miss the days of his short novels. I started reading Card around Songmaster and Hart’s Hope, and was sincerely impressed with his ability to convey as much emotional impact as he did in a single novel, spanning one lifetime.
When spread out over a franchise, the same sort of material has almost no impact whatsoever.
I love Card too. I liked the Alvin Series. I agree that the last book of EarthFall kinda sucked.
I loved Pastwatch, and Enchantment.
I’ve read some short stories, but I don’t remember the one that Max Torque wrote about…pleas elaborate.
Max, is that the one about the creepy baby-looking thing? That story gave me nightmares.
My views on Card? Really, as much as I love most of his work, I am forced to agree that he has trouble with long series. Although I personally don’t believe the Shadow series has reached that point yet, the Ender series most certainly did. And I despised the last book of the Earth series. It was such a tonal shift (IMO) from the other four books.
My current gripe? Finish the Mayflower Trilogy already! I want to know what happened to Lovelock, dammit!
Wow, great replies so far. Let me address a few of them.
Netbrian
The books in the sequel are different from the original, and that’s the most important thing to remember. When you read Speaker for the Dead you aren’t reading Ender’s Game II. The next three books have a different feel and are written quite differently than EG. EG was designed as a prelude to the real series and just happened to stand alone quite well.
Manda JO I agree with your assessment of his work on series. Often times they just start to fall flat. I didn’t particularly enjoy the last book (so far) in the Alvin series or the last book in the Ender series. When I read Xenocide, before Children of the Mind was written, I too thought Card painted himself into a corner. After reading CotM though, I think the ending to Xeno makes a bit more sense.
The Homecoming series is one of the few of his that I’ve enjoyed all the way through. Even though I didn’t know this while reading it, Homecoming is loosely based off the Book of Mormon. This might be why it was easier for him to stay on track.
As far as the Ender’s series goes, he’s looking at creating a story based on Petra along the same lines as Ender’s Shadow. After that, he’s thinking of selling off the rights to the Ender Universe so others can create stories of Ender and Val during those 3000 years between books. This could be very interesting but I find it quite questionable for Card to do. He’s strongly voiced his disapproval of other authors selling off their created universe and characters for profit.
More comments in a bit, I’ll just send this one off.
I think “hit and miss” is definitely the way to put it. When he manages to remember what he’s doing and actually tell a story, it’s usually quite good. All too often, though, it’s hard to follow what he’s thinking.
Anyway, I agree with the general feeling about the Ender series, and just want to add that the two recent additions, Ender’s Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon fall in the “good” category. They’re well worth reading. IIRC, he’s planning two or three more in that series as well. If you haven’t heard of them, Ender’s Shadow tells the Ender’s Game story from Bean’s point of view, while Shadow of the Hegemon tells what happens to the Battle School kids back on Earth while Ender is traveling off to become a Speaker for the Dead.
One of the things that I love about Card is not just that he loves to write. He loves to teach others to write. How to write Science Fiction and Fantasy is a great book for writers. I’ve read it twice.
Max Torque that was indeed a creepy story. I couldn’t get the image of flipper baby crawling over street lights out of my head. How about the others from his book, like Fat Farm and Freeway Games? Both of those were more disturbing than I’ve seen Card most of the time.
WEW, it’s quite a short story so I wouldn’t want to ruin it. But basically, this guy comes home and sees this VERY deformed baby drowning in a toilet. He rescues it and suddenly he starts to see the baby everywhere.
Fenris I haven’t read anything by Spider Robinson yet. But I’d love to see a story between the other two. I’m not sure it would work though:
Card: OK, in this chapter, I think we need to show Lila’s character growing stronger through self discovery. She needs to understand the consequences of her actions when he meets Jezebel.
Martin: I say we kill her.
Card: What? You can’t do that! She’s the main character! Who will fight Jezebel?
Martin: Kill her off too.
Card: Well, considering you’ve written 589 other characters into this novel, it might not be a bad idea to thin the field a bit.
Martin: And throw in some sandkings to kill off even more characters.
Card: I don’t do gore. This is about the exploration of the humans not a bloodfest.
Martin: Give me the keyboard, I’m taking over. Bye Bye Lila.
Card: Can you at least turn her into an omnipotent computer program?
Martin: No, this is a fantasy story. She may be able to be revived by sorcerers. But I haven’t yet decided if there will be any magic in this world. I’ll let you know in book 27.
lucie
It’s not at all off topic. And the answer is yes. To both questions. sigh…
Basically he’s been wanting to make a movie forever. He sold the movie rights in 1987 and nothing yet has come of it. I think that the script is done, but I’m not certain. I’ve read the first 30 pages or so and it looks pretty cool.
Here’s the main problem: this movie is not about technology. This movie is not about special effects or blue screens. This is about children. He needs LOTS of good, solid child actors all the same age and that’s hard to do. Even harder when any delay means the children aren’t children anymore. again, sigh…
Card is amongst my prefered SF writers. I discovered him reading a short story which I still consider the best I ever read. Unfortunately, I don’t know its english title. It’s about a society in which everybody is attributed very early in his life his future job (always the best for him). The hero happens to be best fitted to create music, and so he does, until unfortunately he listens a piece from Bach, which was forbidden for him since it would warp his creative talent…and the story goes on…
Anyway, after reading this short story, I didn’t miss a chance to read another of his books/short story. I can’t say I always found them amazing. For instance, I’ve been dissapointed by Alvin, which seemed to make less and less sense the further I read it. On the other hand, I found “Speaker for the dead” a great book.
I read “the Eumenides…” and wasn’t impressed (it’s about a really foul guys who is haunted by child-like monsters only him can see. He then understand all the wrongs he has done in his life, and try to correct them, but…)
Am I alone to think that the short story by the same name “Ender’s games” originated from is better than the novel?
Also, I never heard about “Colombus”. I suppose it hasn’t been translated in french.