Non-readers of science fiction may find this hard to believe but it is possible to experience comfort reading in the sci-fi genre. Much like "comfort food", settling in with this book I found myself in a comfortable place with people I know. The story Orson Scott Card has written brings the reader back to a character that even after four books the last of which concluded the story line of Ender Wiggin allows the reader to return to a stage of his life left open to explore. You know of sequels and prequels, well this I guess would be a midquel. The story of Andrew "Ender" Wiggin begins in the book, Ender's Game, as a mere child, a genius by birth is trained to be a leader at "Battle School" and eventually saves the human race from annihilation by a bug race called the formics. Originally the next three books (Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and Children of the Mind) pick up with Ender many years after the war as an adult. "Ender in Exile" fills in his story between the Battle School and his life later on and quite a story it is. While reading I was constantly aware of how much richer a character Card was making Ender beyond what he already was. The thing to me that stands out the most about Card's writing is the amount of depth he provides in the many of the characters he creates. This I've known through the twelve books I've read of his and so it continued with Exile. The other day while I was eating lunch at a little sandwich shop/cafe in Portland reading the Afterwood of the book, which Card wrote to explain the writing of the book. A woman that worked there saw the title and mentioned she had just finished reading Ender's Game and asked how Ender in Exile was. I told her I thought it was terrific but recommended she read the other stories first as being able to come back to Ender's life after the adventures of those later books had a provided certain amount of satisfaction. I wouldn't call this a review, just trying to describe it as an experience in reading. The Ender series also includes a number of side stories of other characters from Ender's Game so there's a lot of ground to cover.
Friday, March 05, 2010
Comfort reading
Non-readers of science fiction may find this hard to believe but it is possible to experience comfort reading in the sci-fi genre. Much like "comfort food", settling in with this book I found myself in a comfortable place with people I know. The story Orson Scott Card has written brings the reader back to a character that even after four books the last of which concluded the story line of Ender Wiggin allows the reader to return to a stage of his life left open to explore. You know of sequels and prequels, well this I guess would be a midquel. The story of Andrew "Ender" Wiggin begins in the book, Ender's Game, as a mere child, a genius by birth is trained to be a leader at "Battle School" and eventually saves the human race from annihilation by a bug race called the formics. Originally the next three books (Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and Children of the Mind) pick up with Ender many years after the war as an adult. "Ender in Exile" fills in his story between the Battle School and his life later on and quite a story it is. While reading I was constantly aware of how much richer a character Card was making Ender beyond what he already was. The thing to me that stands out the most about Card's writing is the amount of depth he provides in the many of the characters he creates. This I've known through the twelve books I've read of his and so it continued with Exile. The other day while I was eating lunch at a little sandwich shop/cafe in Portland reading the Afterwood of the book, which Card wrote to explain the writing of the book. A woman that worked there saw the title and mentioned she had just finished reading Ender's Game and asked how Ender in Exile was. I told her I thought it was terrific but recommended she read the other stories first as being able to come back to Ender's life after the adventures of those later books had a provided certain amount of satisfaction. I wouldn't call this a review, just trying to describe it as an experience in reading. The Ender series also includes a number of side stories of other characters from Ender's Game so there's a lot of ground to cover.
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Comfort read? Have just finished Dick’s book, Do Androids dream... Blade Runner in print. If only someone had warned me Harrison Ford’s craggy features were merely a jumping off point for Darko Suvin’s cognitive estrangement and excuse for an exploration of Marxist/postmodernist allegory in the context of the settled values of American society during the cold war era. Science fiction is obviously an acquired taste.
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