[REVIEW] Why I Hate Orson Scott Card
Feb. 26th, 2005 11:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThis hate isn't complete, of course. I'm not that upset with him.
Ender's Game is a very enjoyable book. I think of it as Lord of the Flies (or, perhaps more appropriately, Battle Royale) translated into space opera. Childhood and adolescence in extremis are always interesting things to read about, especially once you've escaped those two phases.
The various sequels to Ender's Game were hit-and-miss, to a certain extent. There was some interesting characterization, and there were some interesting ideas. (The descolada and the concept of ramen come most immediately to mind.) Too frequently, Card's narrative voice lapsed into didacticism too often. Even so, I never finished one of these sequels feeling that I hadn't had a good time.
Ender's Shadow retells the story of Ender's Game from the viewpoint of Bean, Ender's preternaturally bright young friend at Battle School. Card's idea to write what was remix of Ender's Game was brilliant inspiration. Unfortunately, in Ender's Shadow Card's didacticism dominates an interesting narrative.
But that novel's sequel, Shadow of the Hegemon? And the latest extruded products, which I refuse to dignify with names? They are nothing but didacticism, the most jejeune grand geopolitical schemes composed partly as a way to retcon his future history (Ender's Game, written in the mid-1980s, featured a Warsaw Pact that had conquered all of Eurasia from the Netherlands east through to Pakistan) and partly as a way to express his outrage with short-sighted policies. We Need Order, you see; and, on an Earth newly free of the threat of Bug conquest, his Battle School graduates are free to behave not as human beings, but as monomaniacal world conquerors much too interested in translating their games of Risk onto the real world, with little or no motivation. His characters are mere tissue wrapped around bold grand ideals, flags which flutter proudly in strong wind but fall limp as soon as the air grows still.
They could have been so much better. But they aren't, and Card knows why they are the way that they are. He thinks it's all well and good, though. And for that, I hate him.
Ender's Game is a very enjoyable book. I think of it as Lord of the Flies (or, perhaps more appropriately, Battle Royale) translated into space opera. Childhood and adolescence in extremis are always interesting things to read about, especially once you've escaped those two phases.
The various sequels to Ender's Game were hit-and-miss, to a certain extent. There was some interesting characterization, and there were some interesting ideas. (The descolada and the concept of ramen come most immediately to mind.) Too frequently, Card's narrative voice lapsed into didacticism too often. Even so, I never finished one of these sequels feeling that I hadn't had a good time.
Ender's Shadow retells the story of Ender's Game from the viewpoint of Bean, Ender's preternaturally bright young friend at Battle School. Card's idea to write what was remix of Ender's Game was brilliant inspiration. Unfortunately, in Ender's Shadow Card's didacticism dominates an interesting narrative.
But that novel's sequel, Shadow of the Hegemon? And the latest extruded products, which I refuse to dignify with names? They are nothing but didacticism, the most jejeune grand geopolitical schemes composed partly as a way to retcon his future history (Ender's Game, written in the mid-1980s, featured a Warsaw Pact that had conquered all of Eurasia from the Netherlands east through to Pakistan) and partly as a way to express his outrage with short-sighted policies. We Need Order, you see; and, on an Earth newly free of the threat of Bug conquest, his Battle School graduates are free to behave not as human beings, but as monomaniacal world conquerors much too interested in translating their games of Risk onto the real world, with little or no motivation. His characters are mere tissue wrapped around bold grand ideals, flags which flutter proudly in strong wind but fall limp as soon as the air grows still.
They could have been so much better. But they aren't, and Card knows why they are the way that they are. He thinks it's all well and good, though. And for that, I hate him.
