Braddy Reads Ender's Shadow

I actually feel a little bad about this one...

My book club met in December to do a book exchange. Now, I joined the book club because I wanted to expand my horizons a little - read books I wouldn't choose to read on my own. So when we all decided to share our favorite book with someone else in the club, I was excited to get something new and different.

And... well, I don't really like Orson Scott Card.

I hope I was able to mask my disappointment when I opened up Ender's Shadow... but I doubt I was. I mean, it feels a little childish to get all huffy when your gifts don't live up to their expectations. And I don't know many twenty-whatevers as childish as I am. Still, a gift's a gift, so I gave the book a read.

My reasons for disliking Card are kind of difficult to explain. For one thing, he's said some rather stupid things I don't quite agree with. That's not really it, though. I think it boils down to the feeling I got when I read Card's Seventh Son series back in junior high. Those books are a bizarre fantasy series loosely based around the life of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. I don't remember them being particularly BAD books, but I do remember getting an odd, unpleasant feeling when I read them. I continued to read the books because they were, in a way, about my own faith. As an adult, I feel like I'd been tricked, especially since whatever feeling I got while reading those books wasn't a pleasant one.

That's all I can say. Card's not a bad writer - he's actually really good. But I just... feel weird reading him. That silly enough for you?

That said, I do remember reading Ender's Game in junior high and LOVING it. In fact, I've often thought I should go back and read it again. So I tried to push my weird feelings towards Card and his writing aside and just enjoy Ender's Shadow for what it was.

Of course, when the first chapter features numerous references to twelve-year-old prostitutes, that task was made pretty difficult. But, really, that's just the sort of grittiness one should expect from the Ender series. The whole point of the series (at least, those books of the series I read) is to take a lot of the violence and psychological conflict of adult war stories and transplant them to a juvenile setting. It's a mite disturbing, yes, but in a way that's more reminiscent of The Hunger Games than, say, Lolita.

For me, the biggest distraction in Ender's Shadow was how hard it sought to rewrite the events of Ender's Game, casting Bean in a stronger protagonist role. Card goes to great length to portray Bean, not as Ender's peer, but his superior. In a way, by building up Bean's story so much, I kinda felt that Ender's story was diminished.

But, really, I'm nitpicking. There's a reason Ender's Game was so highly regarded, and Card's strengths show through equally strongly here. Bean's calculations are fascinating to read. The way he understands people so thoroughly, and yet somehow misses their humanity, makes him a truly compelling character. So, yeah, this book was definitely worth the read.