Ender's Game

the_monkey

At the moment I am reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card,
It was highly recommended to me and I am about 120pages in,
Not really grabbing me so far, it's ok and has improved over the last while,

what are others opinion of it ? is Scott Card someone you love or hate ?

does it take a while to get going - since there is at least 5 "Ender" books...

cheers

JohnK

I found the series enjoyable enough when I read it so I'd stick with it if I were you. I wouldnt really have an opinion on OSC himself though and its only the Ender books and their various offshoots that I've read so I dont know what his other stuff is like.

the_monkey

Actually just reading chapter 9 there and it's picking up !

Johnny Storm

It started out as a short story which IMHO was excellent. Then he rewrote it into a novel and then it became a series of novels.
So I would say: great idea - pretty much flogged to death.

Spunge

I thought it was decent, kept me reading but im surprised its so highly rated. The Battle school stuff didnt really interest me much. Maybe its because of the rest of the books ?

Corsendonk

I thought it was great but I was 14-15 at the time so it grabbed me more. Reread the entire series earlier in the year and it was still good but the later books ramble at times.

mikhail

the_monkey wrote: »

At the moment I am reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card,
It was highly recommended to me and I am about 120pages in,
Not really grabbing me so far, it's ok and has improved over the last while,

what are others opinion of it ?

To be honest, I didn't think it lived up to its reputation. It has some novel ideas and a nice twist, but it didn't do it for me.

is Scott Card someone you love or hate ?

I guess you meant as an author, but it might be worth mentioning at this point that Orson Scott Card is openly homophobic and racist. He's a fundamentalist Mormon.

Corsendonk

mikhail wrote: »

I guess you meant as an author, but it might be worth mentioning at this point that Orson Scott Card is openly homophobic and racist. He's a fundamentalist Mormon.

I read a good bit of his work, I didn't notice the racism. I try not to let an authors religion/politics to interfer with my reading or you would read hell all.

JohnK

I'd be the same. So long as their work entertains me I don't care what they believe.

Johnny Storm

Corsendonk wrote: »

I read a good bit of his work, I didn't notice the racism....

+1

Shryke

The first book is fairly good but I never read any others. From what I hear the guy is a complete religious nut and it bleeds into his later writing. So **** that.

Overature

I listened to it on audio book, and quite liked it, he seemed to bring it to and end in the first book. and im wondering how he came to make so much more books out of it. but saying that i haven't read the other ones.
they seem to have writing a script, so hopefully we will have a film soon

JohnK

Overature wrote: »

[...]they seem to have writing a script, so hopefully we will have a film soon

Theres been talk about a movie for years but nothing ever came of it - I doubt it'll ever happen at this stage and honestly unless its an animated movie I doubt it'd work.

Funglegunk

I got it as a gift and had never heard of it before so had no expectations. I've read it and three of the subsequent sequels. The first is great, I absolutely loved it. The second and third books are readable, but the fourth is total bollocks if I remember correctly.

Like the commenter above I have also since learned that OSC is a total asshole, but I didn't notice any homophobia or racism in his writing.

Sir Ophiuchus

Funglegunk wrote: »

Like the commenter above I have also since learned that OSC is a total asshole, but I didn't notice any homophobia or racism in his writing.

I don't see any racism, but the homophobia is pretty evident. Presuming the name of the alien race being "Buggers" is just an unfortunate coincidence and not deliberate, that still leaves...

Spoiler for "Children of the Mind":

Ender's long filibusters on how having children and a faithful heterosexual marriage is the ultimate expression of a happy life and duty as a human being. His ultimate marriage to Novinha.

Spoiler for the "Shadow" series with Bean:

Anton the geneticist, who is self-described as interested in men, not women, deciding that ultimately he must find a woman and have a family as his duty as a human being. And he does, despite having no sexual interest in her. There's also a none-too-subtle affiliation of homosexuality with Soviet Russia - he notes that "those like myself" were encouraged to be gay as their duty to the State (population control).

In other words, being gay is alien/Other, traitorous to humanity, and Communist.

That being said, Ender's Game is a good book. Especially for gifted children to read.

madrab

I enjoyed Enders Game, struggled through the second one and gave up halfway through the third as it got a bit too preachy

Ender's Game is good, but it's a little childish. Keep with it, as the plot has a nice little twist, but give the rest of the series a try. Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide are absolute gems.
...And avoid Ender in Exile.

gufnork

I don't remember exactly how far into this book I got but I do remember being distinctly unimpressed with it. I don't read much sci fi beyond Iain Banks and only picked this up because there are so many rave reviews around the internet for it. Deeply disappointing in my view.

pinkypinky

I read this recently. I liked it but unlike other young adult fiction (i.e Hunger Games), I have no interest in reading further books in the series. To me it felt complete.

Captain Chapman

I first listened to Ender's Game on audio-book trying to sleep, the result was I stayed awake till the book was over. I then proceeded to get a copy of Ender's Game and read it again. I did find as I progressed through the series that it did get bogged down in religion a bit.

I still really like the first two books, after that my opinion drops a bit.

Tenger

Last few opinions seconded.

Enders Game is a complete novel. No definite need to read on after that.

Speaker for The Dead and Xenocide I found really fleshed out the universe.

Have read Enders Shadow; enjoyed the Bean viewpoint. but it seems to just be a justification for another novel. Have physically picked up the latest books (Exile and Mind) several times in stores. However am very lukewarm about getting into any of the rest of the series.

Cardinal Richelieu

I have read most of OSC work and have to say Ender Game is still his best work if aimed more at a teenage audience.

Manach

Looking forward to the movie that is supposed to be planned.

garg

the movie is due out shortly can't remember who's going to be in it. I found the book to be a little boring at times

LeinsterDub

It's a good book but not great . Beyound the twist it's decent. The later books shouldn't be part of the series they so little to do with the first

JohnK

garg wrote: »

the movie is due out shortly can't remember who's going to be in it. I found the book to be a little boring at times

Wow, I'm actually surprised the movie is in the works now as last I heard it was one of those projects that looked like it'd never get off the ground. I was also hoping it'd be an animated movie rather than a live action one as that must surely limit them with regards to sequels, going down the Bean route etc. since the kids in it will do a lot of growing in a very short space of time. Oh and Ben Kingsley & Harrison Ford :eek: I certainly didnt think it'd be the sort of movie to attract such high profile actors.

Think its about time I read these books again now to refresh it all in my mind :cool:

Evac101

:eek:

http://io9.com/5893478/teachers-job-in-jeopardy-for-reading-to-kids-from-enders-game

JohnK

If you actually follow through the links to the other news sites you'll find another one which states

According to the incident report, a teacher had been reading pornographic material from the Internet to the students in class. One of the stories was about prostitutes having their faces covered with ejaculation.

Personally I hope thats the reason the teacher was suspended rather than reading from Enders Game :eek:

http://www.wrdw.com/home/headlines/Student_claims_Aiken_Co_middle_school_teacher_read_explicit_material_to_class_142658256.html

Evac101

I personally had but how many knee jerk reactionists will? The first of the link news stories is from a local news website and I would guess that the majority of it's users won't check the comments section and then follow on from there to the more, arguably, balanced report that is linked.

JohnK

You're probably right there a lot of people will just read the headline and head directly to their nearest library to organise a good old fashioned book burning. I'm surprised so many of the sites are misreporting the incident since usually the news likes to scream about all the porn on the internet so even mentioning OSC's book is just bizarre.

fitz

JohnK wrote: »

Overature wrote: »

[...]they seem to have writing a script, so hopefully we will have a film soon

Theres been talk about a movie for years but nothing ever came of it - I doubt it'll ever happen at this stage and honestly unless its an animated movie I doubt it'd work.

Filming started a couple of weeks ago. Strong looking cast...

JohnK

Yeah it does look like a very strong cast alright so I'll be interested to see if they can pull it off.

Akarinn

Talk about spoilers... dafuq!

_Leary_

I personally loved Enders Game. I found the battle school section to be a very nice educational piece for a younger reader, very much something I shall get my son to read one day. I definitely think it's more aimed at a younger audience.

Together with this I found Enders Shadow to be a nice companion book to Enders Game but not essential to the series.

Speaker for the dead was a great novel too however it took a totally different approach to Enders Game and was a very different story altogether.

Ender in Exile was read out of curiosity but honestly I wished I didn't bother, only worth reading if you want to know every detail of the series.

JohnK

Having just watched Hugo which starred the boy who was cast to play Ender I'm now cautiously optimistic about the movie. Granted it’s a bit of a change to have Ender so old and as such will probably lack some of the impact of the books but I’m a bit more hopeful than I had been.

Dan_Solo

This was at #3 or something of some top 100 SF+F books of all time which was the only reason I read it. (call me shallow if you like).
Hated it. It was beneath YA for most of Ender's own story it and the "internet chatroom" bits with his siblings were an absolute joke.
Great cast yes, but U/PG SF isn't my thing really.

meijin

I loved the "Ender's Game" book, read it few times. I found the rest of the series good too

promethius42

Just started listening to this on audiobook so far it seems worth it.