Some books I buy because the library doesn’t have them and I simply must read them, the subject matter is so pressing. Others… well, I may not care that much for the subject matter, but the book could be so darned good, I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t own a copy. A copy to read and enjoy over and over again—the real thing, be it fiction or non-fiction, that I can repeatedly devour. C. S. Lewis was able to read and reread his favourite books and still find something new each time; and in the last such book I bought I’m finding the very same thing. (This doesn’t happen as often as I’d like. I wish it does, so the compulsion for new books won’t be so darned strong.)
It’s… drumroll… Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game.
Sure, Game may be old as heck, Card having written it in longhand during the days before computers… but like the great works of science fiction, the story of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin and his destiny is timeless, never losing relevance (or readability!) in the 30 years since its copyright year of 1977.
(For an example of science fiction becoming embarrassingly dated, check out the film version of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Nice show, but for the magnetic tapes drives that are so 1970s.)
A gamer like me might compare it to oldies-but-greaties we remember only with fondness as hardware and realism march on—the X-wings, the Red Alerts, and the King’s Quests we knew, loved and painfully moved on from as Windows 95 and the days of the 256-colour, 640x480 display faded into the past. Ender’s Game is like such a treasure of gaming—but a printed book can last far, far longer than a computer program’s technical requirements.
Game is a bildungsroman at its heart, a story with the oft-used (I dare say clichéd) plot of the childhood and education of a hero. A hero who grows up in a hard life (Harry Potter’s Dursley guardians, Ender’s cruel brother, etc.), is whisked away to military academy or wherever heroes of speculative fiction learn to be Supreme Commanders or wizards… and eventually, after (insert Many, Many Trials here) defeats the bad guys and Saves The World.
Don’t laugh. This very plot shot J. K. Rowling to fame, and a well-deserved billion-dollar fortune.
But even before Harry came onto the scene, Ender Wiggin was occupying one controversial place on bookshelves and minds. It’s set in a future where mankind has been invaded by vicious insectoid aliens twice before, and were only able to survive thanks to the presence of a brilliant military commander in charge of one of its fleets. Now the next generation must fight off an impending Third Invasion—due to relativistic effects, humanity has almost a century to develop new war machines, prepare new commanders. Enter a family with three children so insightful into human behaviour they catch the eye of instructors at the Battle School. The first prodigy, Peter, is deemed too cruel, the second, Valentine, too empathetic. The youngest, Ender, is deemed “just right”… and by the time he’s done with training, we’ve followed him on his bloodstained, tortured path to military command. This is as spoiler-free a summary as I can give—if you’ve already read it, by all means know how inadequate it is. If you haven’t, do yourself a favour.
Read this book. I did; in three hours the very evening I borrowed it from the NUS library. I went and bought the co-op bookstore’s last copy… then lingered. Should I burn another 10 bucks and three hours on its companion novel, Ender’s Shadow?
But I had my module exam to worry about… and walked away. Sigh. Bye, Ender… for now.
Like Harry Potter, Ender Wiggin will likely outlive his creator by decades. Sure, he didn’t make Card into a billionaire… but then he doesn’t have to. “Think of it,” Card urges in his introduction, “not as something I wrote, but as something you and I made together.”
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And from good story to disappointment.
Don’t get me wrong—I’ve read and mostly agree with Card’s essays on the War on Terror and numerous other issues that go deeper into the American psyche than many are comfortable with, but frankly I’ve spent more time blown away by his writing than ever before. Apparently they’re archived online after appearing in print in his city’s free newspaper The Rhinoceros Times (a rough analogue would be our Today or Epoch Times).
Card has ability, intelligence and courage, a rare combination I’m still fumbling to develop.
Which was why I so desperately wanted to find a good political thriller on these very themes after the book’s awful, totally irrelevant front cover. It has to be seen to be believed—it won my family’s Chris Ryan Award for Poor Cover Design (named for the SAS man’s novel Stand By, Stand By which had a picture of jumping paratroopers on its front cover. No such jump occurs anywhere in the novel.)
Ahem… back to Empire. The cover boasts a scene worthy of Harry Turtledove, the famed alternate-history writer—futuristic tanks and attack helicopters firing laser weapons, infantry wearing World War II-era uniforms, the US Capitol building in the background.
Nonsense! And I mean it. In the worst of Chris Ryan cover tradition, no such battle occurs in the book.
What does occur in Empire, though, starts off pretty promisingly—after a successful assignment in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, US Army Captain Reuben Malich is promoted to Major and assigned to carry out a study detailing how terrorists might possibly attack the White House. Along the way he’s sent to Princeton University and put in a history programme under a professor with an odd obsession: the fall of the Roman republic and its transformation into an empire. Soon the attack Malich predicted does take place, killing the President and throwing America into a new civil war between red and blue.
And then it all falls apart—the story, not the American republic. It’s a little sad when the most you remember are devices that strain credibility, machines so bizarre they’d be more at home in a spoof than alternate history, future SF or otherwise, and so many weird plot twists I had to double-check the name on the cover. (Said machines are only one-time obstacles for the heroes through the whole novel, by the way.) Surely this poor excuse for a thriller wasn’t by the short-story writer, essayist and playwright I admired so much?
It was. Inside, though, only the first chapter and the concluding essay that ends the book actually sound like they were written by an Orson Scott Card. Everything in between looks put together by someone who can’t plot, throws weird new technologies in simply because they Look Cool… and has no idea how they would fit into the story.
In short, someone who doesn’t know how to write a thriller. More than once I was tempted to give up reading, but I pressed on in the hope of finding explanations that never came.
So, Mr. Card, I’ll have to take you in for self-libel; writing a book masquerading as a fast-paced, Tom Clancy-esque work. Empire isn’t the worst book I’ve read, but I think the author of the best book I’ve read could’ve done much, much better.
Just a quick note: my admiration for Card has not been dented—I followed his essays for a year before picking up Empire. I only discovered Card’s full storytelling power when I read Ender’s Game… which explains which one I eventually bought.
Please, let the next Card thriller be worthy of him. Oh please oh please oh please…
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My school library has a book on Card’s work up to 2003—Edith S. Tyson’s Orson Scott Card: Writer of the Terrible Choice. It largely dwells on his series work (Homecoming, the Ender and Shadow books, and the alluring Alvin Maker fantasy books) but points out gems from among his short fiction. Tyson does a great job of conveying Card’s life and its influence on his writing… but no information appears in the book that can’t be gleaned from reading Card himself or the website he maintains.
Except, of course, his poem O Hurried Guest, about the birth and almost immediate death of their youngest daughter. By the end I was ready to give it the title of First Poem to Make Me Cry.
Still, Writer makes fascinating reading—we get glimpses into Card’s early life and works we normally would never be able to relate to. When I borrowed his collection The Folk of the Fringe, I never managed to “get” the stories of Mormon pioneers migrating across a nuclear-devastated future America. I’m sure thankful for Tyson’s very concise (and spoiler-free) summaries.
I’ve barely nicked the surface of Card’s impressive body of work. I can’t say much for some of his books in my opinion, or his theology in my faith, but he’s a great guy, and I plan on reading him for many years to come.
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So our nation is one year older, and (we hope) one year wiser. I won’t go into more detail why the operative word is “hope” but if this year’s National Day Parade is any indication…
Our first NDP-on-a-surfboard is a pretty nifty touch if a tad unnecessary in my opinion, but sadly nothing rivals the main character for sheer un-necessity. He makes the whole floating platform look nothing short of critical as he skates about in his fish costume and spouting weird, New-Agey lines about unity with Ground, Sky, Water and I forget what… lines that would make a primary school kid cringe and even a New Age practitioner go “purify” himself after listening to this travesty.
Sure the entire proceeding would have been better off without the fish entirely, but the actor playing him does an okay—sometimes even spirited—job despite all the awful nonsense he’s forced to say. The very fact somebody OK’d the script is truly, truly troubling, and I don’t really have the time to try and figure it out… and I’m not even sure I want to. Enough trouble already exists in my world without that adding to it.
To sum up this NDP had plenty of effort going into it, but the end result, sadly, felt like yesterday’s news even before it was over. Except perhaps the ministers putting on the Singa caps in the parade goodie bag—very kewt!
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I’ll end with another oldie-but-goodie: Lawrence Block’s writing guide Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: a How-to Guide for Fiction Writers. For concise, candid yet empathetic answers to every question I’ve ever seen written about (and then some) Block has no equal.
Never mind I only read one other book of his, a Matthew Scudder novel I never finished.
Because the bad guy got away.
But TLfF&P lays out some of the most unpleasant truths (and not-so-unpleasant ones) in the writing life. Now if I ever find a bookstore that carries it…
