OK, I have been listening to several tapes. I completed "Ender's Game," by Orson Scott Card, and also the sequel, "Speaker for the Dead." Most of that was during a road trip to Utah and back. I really enjoy this series. I also have enjoyed listening to the author interviews/commentary at the end of the tapes. It is really neat to hear about how books come to be. Orson Card is LDS, and I have enjoyed his unique perspective coming out in his writings. I think it is interesting that he has a lot of Portuguese and Brazilian references in his works. My suspicions were confirmed when I found out that he served a mission in Brazil. Among the references are a colony of Catholic, Portuguese speaking Brazilians populating the planet that is the setting for "Speaker for the Dead" and "Xenocide," which I have yet to read. Also, in the parallel series he wrote following the life of Bean, from "Ender's Game," Bean and a Catholic nun hide out in a Brazilian town for quite a while. His love of the culture really came out in that section of the book. I thought it was neat. Brazil also becomes the capital country in his new world Hegemony in that series. I always enjoy books about other intelligent life forms, and the speculation of how they may have come to be.
The other book I am now making my way through (thanks to Micaela who is kindly copying it from CD to her iPod each night) is Clan of the Cave Bear which I was reading a while back before my CD player broke and I got a job. It is quite enjoyable still. This is another instance where the author has license to speculate about another intelligent species. However, she is somewhat restricted by real scientific theories dealing with early species of man, I think the author does a good job of filling out the threads of theory in an interesting way. Particularly interesting is the issue of different advanced brain styles. In the book, the ancestors of modern man became advanced due to an enhanced cognitive abilities allowing complex abstract thought and problem solving. The Neanderthals achieved their limited reign of superiority through an over developed instinct structure. Memories of earlier ancestor were passed on as permanent pathways in the brain. This meant that there really would be specialized hereditary lines within the species because their parents and grandparents knew certain things that were passed on to there line only. The species are limited, though, by the size of their brains. After a while, there was no more room for new knowledge to be included in the memory banks and innovation was stagnated. Eventually, the newly arrived, but evolutionarily superior Homo Sapiens advanced beyond them and took over. The differing brain style allowed for only the important things to be relearned by each generation, leaving room in the brain to deal with new, unique situations and develop an advanced culture including written records to deal with the issue of passing on knowledge. At any rate, it makes for a good read.
Let me know your thoughts if you have read any of these books. I am eager for some discussion.
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3 comments:
have read "Ender's Game," "Ender's Shadow" (the one from Bean's perspective), and another one about Bean grown up, but I can't remember the title. I have also read a book by Card in a different series called something like "Seventh Son," I think.
I found the stories extremely compelling, but in the end, I was too disturbed by the portrayals of intense violence and cruely inflicted by little boys on each other and decided not to read any more. Well, actually I decided that after reading Ender's Game, which was the first, then I went and read those others, but each of them left me with some really unwanted disquiet of spirit. So maybe I'll have a relapse and read more in the future.
I think the one I enjoyed most was the one I can't remember the name of about a grown-up Bean. The world that it portrayed and the power-play between nations seemed frightningly and intruigingly plausible. That one I also felt had the most realistic and not disturbing portrayals of humanity, from what I can remember.
It is exciting to be able to post to your blog some comments on a book I have also read :o)
The six books are
"Ender's Game," "Speaker for the Dead," "Xenocide,"
"Ender's Shadow," "Shadow of the Hegemon," and "Shadow of the Giant."
The only one I have yet to read is "Xenocide." I have enjoyed them all, though you are right that there are a couple portayals of violence by children in "Ender's Game" and "Ender's Shadow." They were, however, essential to establishing the character of Ender and Bean in order for it to be believable that two children so young could actually be trusted as commanders of the International Fleet attack forces. They couldn't have it in the back of thier minds that some adult will come to their aid with all the answers when they get stuck, because the fate of humanity was literally resting in their hands. In the later books the main characters are no longer children. In fact, Ender is extremely penitant for the actions of his past. He is loved and revered as the infinitely good and compassionate Speaker for the Dead, and simultaneously hated and condemned as the infinitely evil Ender. No one could imagine that those two were one and the same. It is the essential skill of Ender that he can beat any adversary, but only after he understands them so intimately that he comes to love them, and therefore morns their defeat. In each case, his victory is overshadowed by intense sorrow. I also found Peter's later regret interesting as he grew up and tried to cope and deal with his guilt over the cruelty which drove his younger brother and sister from him as children. Even after becoming the Hegemon his greatest hope was that Ender would forgive him. It was Peter's desire for honest appraisal that led to Ender's biography "The Hegemon" which really established the prestige of the Speaker for the Dead, spawning a pseudo-religion.
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