
Orson Scott Card's Amazon Review of Ender's Game - thinker
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3SKPG9XEJYASE/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0812589041&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=
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ab9
"No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading."

Is that really true? The first Orwell book I read ( _Homage to Catalonia_ )
was required for a history class -- a class that had previously assigned some
truly awful literature. So I was pessimistic and I read it grudgingly at
first. But halfway through the book, I realized I loved it.

~~~
nl
I had the same experience with Watership Down:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down>

I was set to read it when I was 14 or 15 in English. What 14 or 15 yo boy
wants to read a book about a rabbit? I was wrong, and loved it, then went and
read every other book Richard Adams wrote.

So I guess it's not _impossible_ , but at the same time I was probably broad
minded enough to change my mind. Many people won't.

~~~
riffraff
OT, but I can't thank you enough. I read part of this book as a kid in my
school antology, loved it butn ever read all of it. Now that I know it's name
I can go and fix that missing part of my life :)

~~~
nl
Always glad to be of service :)

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hugh3
Unfortunately does nothing to change my view that authors should probably keep
away from their own reviews. If he'd had some brilliant new insight that would
be one thing, but instead he just comes off as slightly more defensive than
anyone who has sold tens of millions of books should.

I guess it was 1999 when this was written, though, so the norms for online
reviews had not yet been established.

~~~
mcritz
I felt similarly. “Why not write a blog post?” I thought.

~~~
saraid216
A blog post in 1999 is asking a little much.

~~~
starwed
But then again, Ender's Game _included the general idea of blogs as a plot
point_... (Not sure what else you would classify Peter/Valentine's self-
published online essays as.)

~~~
icarus_drowning
Aren't they explicitly described as forum postings?

~~~
a1k0n
Yeah, it's described as something more akin to Usenet than anything else from
what I remember.

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latch
I always thought of Ender's Game of something like a child's book. Something
like Harry Potter to LoTRs. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, I
mean, Harry Potter got a whole bunch of people reading. But seeing this
explanation helps me better understand why I feel like that, and what it
means.

I'd call this an analysis more than a review. Whatever you think it is, I
found it a pretty honest and open piece coming from someone who has such a
personal stake in the book.

~~~
Stormbringer
The short story was much better.

There is speculation that the full length novel was ghost written. Essentially
somebody asked Card a bunch of questions about it, and he didn't know the
answers to any of his questions...

see also: <http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/5/28/22428/7034>

NB: I'm not claiming it's true, just pointing out that a claim has been made

~~~
nl
I call BS on premise of that link, and on the original essay (which is now
online: <http://peachfront.diaryland.com/enderhitlte.html>)

Claims like this fail the Occam's Razor test:

 _I've seen Elaine's notes and heard Card on the phone, and there is no doubt
in my mind that the Hitler Hypothesis is correct; it is simply impossible that
Ender's Game and Speaker were written by someone who did not have a very
detailed knowledge of Adolph Hitler's life. There are very exact parallels in
there that you wouldn't even notice unless you read the footnotes to the most
detailed Hitler biographies. I also tend to believe that Card does not have
that level of knowledge about Hitler._

It would be simpler to assume that a story where a person causes the
extinction of a species would have some similarities with a war in which
genocide occurred.

I've read Card's books and I have reasonable knowledge of Hitler and I didn't
notice any particular parallel. I suspect that the claim that he doesn't know
his own books comes more from a reluctance to engage in a telephone debate
rather than the idea that he didn't write them

I say that as someone who really liked _Ender's Game_ , but thought _Speaker
for the Dead_ was crap. I had always assumed that _Speaker for the Dead_ had
some kind of Mormon message, but I think these accusations go way too far and
are unsupported by the evidence.

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andrewvc
I'll just point out that the thing I didn't like about enders game was that
the book felt too monotone. It has a great twist at the end, but everything
leading up to it is linear, predictable, and while initially exciting, quickly
becomes uninteresting.

~~~
mattdeboard
I've read through Ender's Game more times than I can count, and have worn
through two paperback copies. It is a powerful book with plenty of great
object lessons. Quality is, of course, in the eye of the beholder.

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nhebb
_I found that the less I put on the stage, the more the audience would imagine
a much more compelling set than I could ever build_

Analogous to Card's statement, lately I've come to realize that I like movies
better when they don't explicitly tell you everything. I think a good formula
for writing is to lay all the facts out, then remove one or two of them from
the script.

~~~
CWuestefeld
I'd almost agree with you, but as you describe it, the result would just be
_deus ex machina_. It's not fair to just pull a resolution out of your butt,
that couldn't possibly have been predicted.

Better to have all the facts there, but not in your face. Commonly, a film
with focus on a key point, or dwell on an image, to ensure that the viewer
gets it, and I think that's a mistake. A good example of a movie that gets it
right is _Silence of the Lambs_ , in which all the information is there, but
the viewer needs to separate the wheat from the chaff.

~~~
nhebb
I didn't mean _deux ex machina_. You can provide the information and let the
audience infer the result, or you can explicitly show the result. As you build
the storyline and subplots, judiciously allowing the audience to interpret
what happened at intermediate points in the story or at the end can make it
more interesting than simply laying it all out.

~~~
alex_c
It's always a balancing act. Chances are any specific level of detail will
belabor the point for some readers/watchers, while simultaneously leaving
others in the dark.

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quandrum
It's hard to see an author so defensive about their work. There will always be
naysayers. Ender's game has persisted for so long in a way that so many of
it's peers hasn't.

We have to remember that negative experiences effect our users more, and
complaints will in general outnumber the praise, even if the the number of
users who are unhappy are outnumbered by happy users by orders of magnitude.

Alternatively, haters gonna hate.

~~~
mattdeboard
I don't find it challenging or difficult or upsetting at all to see an artist
vigorously defend his work. What I find "hard" is someone poo-pooing another
person's passionate defense of something they care about.

~~~
icedpulleys
You don't have to put quotation marks around hard; one of its definitions is
an adjective meaning painful or difficult to endure.

~~~
sp332
GP used quotation marks because it was a quote.

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burgerbrain
The problem with Scott Card is that he substitutes proper character
development with "let's make all the characters naive children who eventually
realize all the adults are manipulative". Its a total copout, and he doesn't
just do it wth the ender books.

Oh yeah, that and his crazy is often showing...

~~~
danilocampos
> "let's make all the characters naive children who eventually realize all the
> adults are manipulative".

I can't agree. Speaker for the Dead (and sequels) characters have a lot of
complexity in their arcs – perhaps because they're mostly not children. I'd
say the Speaker series is a perfect example of how to create characters with
nuance, depth and multiple motivations.

~~~
burgerbrain
Check out 'A Memory of Earth'.

(Or better yet, don't. It, enders game, and enders shadow all did it. Three
strikes and you're out imho, certainly when one of them is the book the author
is known for)

~~~
chc
Three books out of thirty.

And two of those books are the same story told from the perspective of
different characters. And although that is part of the plot of those books, I
don't see how you can say that's all there is to those characters. The pivotal
moments in Ender's life are his acts of violence, not the adults'
manipulation.

And the other isn't really about naive children realizing adults are
manipulative, either — the characters just happen to be young. Volemak (the
main adult in the story) actually is a good man, and the children who oppose
him are the _antagonists_.

Seriously, I have a laundry list of complaints about Card's writing (the
Homecoming series in particular), but your complaints seem pretty shallow and
sound like you're levying heavy criticism without ever giving them a chance.

~~~
burgerbrain
This particular complaint of mine is purely technical. I think that, based on
three of his three book that I have read, he demonstrates a significant lack
of skill when it comes to character development. Trust me, if I was going to
get into nontechnical complaints, I would undoubtably be downvoted simply for
creating an unreasonably long post alone.

Anyway, my time is worth too much to be scientifically rigorous. I gave him
the benefit of the doubt twice already, and am not willing to do it again. And
to be honest, I would suggest that anyone who thinks I somehow "missed
something" in his works is giving the man far to much credit.

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cschmidt
It is a little funny to see Ender's Game on HN today. Tomorrow I'm going on a
fishing trip with my 10 year old son. As our evening entertainment, he wanted
me to read him Ender's Game. I've got the book already packed in my bag.

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mkramlich
Very classy. Plus gives a little insight into how a writer approaches it as a
craft. Love to read things like this.

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pitdesi
I love Ender's Game and all of OSC's other books, but it seems like he might
be a terrible guy... more on that in this very interesting interview:
<http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/02/03/card>

~~~
grandalf
The author misunderstands what Card is trying to say in response to her
questions. Also, she evidently misunderstood Ender's Game quite a bit as well.

Ender was suited to be a brilliant military commander precisely because he
_hated_ killing so much. A more bloodthirsty commander would have fallen for
certain traps, committed certain errors of judgment that Ender was immune to.
The nuance here is that Ender's strategic advantage came from a tremendous
empathy with his adversary.

In the end, Ender had to be fooled into destroying the Buggers precisely
because of this empathy. He never would have been able to commit a genocide if
he thought it was actually a genocide, but he could do it in the context of a
video game.

And, for what it's worth, the childhood bullying delivered by Ender's brother
was also a function of Ender's love for his brother. We see very soon that
Ender is capable of tremendous violence, but he tolerates mistreatment from
Peter because he loves him so much.

It is this victimhood which endears Ender to any reader who has felt
victimized, by showing that in some cases there is great physical and moral
power beneath the surface.

The author of this strange hit piece is clearly trying to rile up various
reactive political groups against Card. Sure, card is a Mormon and appears
somewhat socially conservative in his personal beliefs. He is clearly not
homophobic and became defensive when he sensed that the author was trying to
broach the subject which had probably caused him much pain.

Sure some people believe that anyone who doesn't advocate same sex marriage
qualifies as homophobic... The author of the Salon piece clearly thinks that
state recognition of same sex marriage is hugely important.

I'd argue that through his books Card has done far more good (by enlightening
people about important moral issues) than any harm caused by his traditional
view (restricting the word "marriage" but not the state sanctioned bond
between two people).

The remarks about Card yapping and flirting suggest a very immature person
wrote the article. Clearly at a certain point Card was trying to be polite and
let the interview finish without incident... something that was framed as
"shutting down"... Bizarre stuff.

~~~
araneae
I would take issue with your view that Card isn't homophobic.

From "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality" by Orson Scott Card:

"Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be
indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating
them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message to those who
flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted
to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society."

So the man actively opposes it gay marriage. He supports laws that make
homosexual acts illegal. He doesn't think that gays should be protected from
getting fired because of their sexuality. How is that _not_ homophobic?

~~~
invalidOrTaken
"Homophobic" gets bandied about to the point of losing its meaning.
"Unreasoning fear/antipathy towards homosexuals/homosexuality" is what the
dictionary spat out, and I suspect Card would say 1) it's not "unreasoning"
2)"antipathy towards homosexuality" != "evil."

~~~
araneae
I'm pretty sure a reasonable person would consider it antipathy towards
homosexuality.

~~~
invalidOrTaken
You're absolutely right. My comment probably implied that I didn't think Card
is homophobic. Rather, I meant to get across that I don't think he minds.

