Ah, Card. I was going to go to bed early tonight, too. I own pretty much everything he’s written, including some of the really lousy ones written recently, and can’t pass this up.)
I read Ender’s Game and Speaker in one gulp, (on a Friday night in March when I was in seventh grade, which is decently long enough ago that my remembering that impresses me). They resonated with me very strongly and remain one of my most powerful reading experiences.
I didn’t like the first of the “Shadow” books because I found that Card and I disagreed on what had happened - his new version wasn’t the same as the one I’d created in my head while reading Ender’s Game.
Xenocide was pretty good, but got silly in the end, what with wishing making things so, and all of that. Children of the Mind… well, it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t very good, either.
Why do you folks like Pastwatch so much? I enjoyed the last third (once they go back), but found that the rest of that dragged on and on.
I thought that the Homecoming books started out OK, but by the second half of the third book had gotten quite repetetive. (You mean Nafai’s brother’s don’t like him? And they’re out to get him? Again?) Same goes for the Alvin books.
Some of the short stories are really sick. Some are just really weird. And some, I think, are great. Other people have already talked about Unaccompanied Sonata, and I also love Porcelain Salamander, which nobody ever mentions.
But yeah, I’d love to know what’s going on with Lovelock already.
I loved the first two Ender books…a lot, but the last two lost me completely. Ender’s Shadow was good though.
The first two Alvin books are among my favorites, but then the series started to nosedive.
Lost Boys was much better as a short story than a novel (the Mormon stuff got in the way of the story for me).
I love most of his stuff, but he really needs to get a better handle on those series.