Books Read: Ender's Shadow
Jul. 22nd, 2003 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aLast Friday I picked up two novels I'd been meaning to get for a while, but hadn't due to tight cash: Kiln People (by David Brin) and Ender's Shadow (by Orson Scott Card). I figured that I was going to be on planes for about 9 hours surrounding GenCon, and I might as well have some books that I really wanted to read, hence the splurge.
And, of course, I needed to start reading Ender's Shadow (my first choice of the two, because I've been staring at its sequel, Shadow of the Hegemon, on my to-be-read shelf since I lucked across it used at Moe's a month or so ago), because you don't want to get on a plane with a fresh book, it's spine uncracked, because there are enough distractions on a plane that it can make getting into a new book a bit difficult.
So, when I brought my books home, I started reading Ender's Shadow. Just a chapter a day or so, I figured, just enough to get me interested.
Well, let me say, Ender's Shadow was a very engrossing book. I had trouble putting it down Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday. And Monday. When I *cough* finished the book.
Card wrote Ender's Shadow as a parallel book to Ender's Game, with each book surrounding the same major events in a similar time period from a different point of view. He managed to pull it off *very* well by putting us solidly in the skull of Bean, the protagonist of the new book, so that the joy was not just in the events of the plot, but in how Bean interpreted them and reacted to them.
The book was very thoroughly Bean's as a result, very uniquely his in fact. And it's very cleanly set up for sequels. Just as Ender's story revolves around the Buggers, and the next three Ender books are about those results, Bean's story revolves around what happens on Earth after the Bugger war ends, and I expect the next 2 (or 3) books to revolve around this separate topic.
As it is, I now have three books going with me to Indianapolis. The first is Ender's Game, a reread, because I really wanted to see how everything looked from Ender's point of view after seeing Bean's. The second is Shadow of the Hegemon, the aforementioned sequel, and the third is Kiln People, the aforementioned other purchase. I figure that'll keep me, and I'll probably also find other shiny things to buy in Indianapolis at the con.
My plane for the airport leaves in just under six hours. Bleh.
And, of course, I needed to start reading Ender's Shadow (my first choice of the two, because I've been staring at its sequel, Shadow of the Hegemon, on my to-be-read shelf since I lucked across it used at Moe's a month or so ago), because you don't want to get on a plane with a fresh book, it's spine uncracked, because there are enough distractions on a plane that it can make getting into a new book a bit difficult.
So, when I brought my books home, I started reading Ender's Shadow. Just a chapter a day or so, I figured, just enough to get me interested.
Well, let me say, Ender's Shadow was a very engrossing book. I had trouble putting it down Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday. And Monday. When I *cough* finished the book.
Card wrote Ender's Shadow as a parallel book to Ender's Game, with each book surrounding the same major events in a similar time period from a different point of view. He managed to pull it off *very* well by putting us solidly in the skull of Bean, the protagonist of the new book, so that the joy was not just in the events of the plot, but in how Bean interpreted them and reacted to them.
The book was very thoroughly Bean's as a result, very uniquely his in fact. And it's very cleanly set up for sequels. Just as Ender's story revolves around the Buggers, and the next three Ender books are about those results, Bean's story revolves around what happens on Earth after the Bugger war ends, and I expect the next 2 (or 3) books to revolve around this separate topic.
As it is, I now have three books going with me to Indianapolis. The first is Ender's Game, a reread, because I really wanted to see how everything looked from Ender's point of view after seeing Bean's. The second is Shadow of the Hegemon, the aforementioned sequel, and the third is Kiln People, the aforementioned other purchase. I figure that'll keep me, and I'll probably also find other shiny things to buy in Indianapolis at the con.
My plane for the airport leaves in just under six hours. Bleh.
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Date: 2003-08-05 08:40 pm (UTC)Card is one of my favorite authors. But there are some series by him I couldn't get into - Seventh Son was one of those.