Why I Have High Blood Pressure

I finished Neuromancer by William Gibson.  To say that I was crazy about the book would be a lie.  To say that I cared about the characters would be a lie.  To say that Gibson has talent, however, would NOT be a lie.  See, I never got into the book.  The concept didn’t do much for me and the characters were kind of boring.  As such, I didn’t read the book too closely.  I lost track of the plot, didn’t go back to figure out what was going on when I got lost, and didn’t care.  However, every few pages, Gibson would have a powerful scene where you saw his talent explode through what was othwersie mediocre work (in my mind, I understand that it’s highly regarded).  While I didn’t really care for this book, I am certainly going to give Gibson another chance.

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Go check it out!

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The Forever War is a novel by Joe Haldeman.

The end.

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After reading Ender’s Game, I wasted no time in reading the follow-up, Speaker for the Dead.  The premise is intriguing.  The story picks up about 20 or so “relative-time” years after Ender’s Game (which, in “real-time” years is closer to 3,000 or so years due to the mystery of space travel).  Ender, now going by his real name, Andrew, is in his mid-30s and living on the planet Trondheim with his sister, Valentine.  Andrew has spent his life — SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!  SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!! –

working as a Speaker since the genocide of the Buggers in Ender’s Game.  Ender and Valentine have spent their lives traveling from planet to planet in the galaxy looking for a home for the last remaining Bugger hive queen (she is still in a cocoon waiting to hatch).  Ender, who wrote The Hive Queen and the Hegemon, detailing the history of the Buggers as a way of telling the truth about the Buggers, has created a wildly popular pseudo-religion that involves people “speaking” for those who have passed.  Speakers tell the unbiased, unedited truth about a person when requested to do so.

This takes Ender to Lusitania, a colony of Catholics who live on the only planet where intelligent alien life still exists.  The “Piggies” as they come to be known, are primitive compared to humans, but are extremely intelligent.  Humans are supposed to engage in limited interaction with the Piggies, but that does not stop two “murders” of humans by the Piggies (the murders take place about twenty years apart).  The murdered humans are xenologers (who study the Piggies) and family members of them call for a Speaker.

Enter Ender, who heads to Lusitania on the hunch that the Buggers will be able to thrive there and in response to requests for a Speaker.  Ender’s visit to Lusitania allows Card to tell a complex story involving linguistics, anthropology, sociology, cultural histories, sin, religion, the fear of the unknown, the outsiders, and the different, and the desire for redemption.  Well, more accurately, the human need to be redeemed.  Ender eventually uncovers the mysteries of the dead he comes to speak and the actions of the Piggies.

The novel is ambitious, and Orson Scott Card should be respected for trying, but it is not as good as it is ambitious.  What made Ender’s Game work so well, in my mind, was its simplicity.  It followed, for the most part, the story of Ender as he made it through the Battle School.  There was a B story, but it never distracted from the A story.  That cannot be said to be the case with Speaker.

There were far too many characters in Novinha’s family and the problems of each one slowly merged together until I stopped caring and, as a result, repeatedly forgot the names of all the children.  Miro’s fate at the end is a perfect example.  And while I liked the concept of the almost sentient computer program Jane, her story is little more than a retelling of the Buggers and the Piggies.  What makes that worse is that the Piggies are basically a retelling of the Buggers, although that retelling was necessary, so a retelling on top of a retelling is asking a bit much from the reader.

That said, Card presents several interesting ideas that he is not afraid to fully explore (in great detail).  Reading it is a toss up, but I feel that it is necessary if you read Ender’s Game.

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Ender’s Game is arguably the most well known novel written by Orson Scott Card.  I am going to have some things to say about him shortly, but let me first talk about the novel.  It was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.  It was almost impossible to put it down.  The commentary on the need for world powers to talk to each other, to open up, to find ways to overcome the difficulties in communicating was superb, and remains relevant in a time when we are fighting a War on Terror and will have serious issues with China for the foreseeable future.

The character of Ender is also intriguing.  I think that most anyone could identify with the isolation, the confusion, and the determination to overcome that Ender possessed.  The supporting characters, Bean, Petra, Alai, and the rest, all bring excellent traits to the novel.  The entire concept of the Battle School is intriguing, and scary, especially in this political climate.  We are in the process of a serious and important national debate about the War on Terror and what we will do in order to win.  How much will we sacrifice, what rules will we cast aside, how ruthless are we willing to be in order to win?  What will we do in order to win?  And is “winning” the war going to bring about victory?  These questions are discussed in the novel, but Card lets the reader come to his own conclusions.

I also enjoyed the concept explored through Ender’s brother and sister involving the power of fear to unite people.  Fear, at times, is all that can bring diverse peoples together and produce a complicated and complex peace.  In some ways, I think that Card is correct that we need an enemy to bring us together, although he recognizes that we are not truly united, we are only brought together for a time to face a common enemy.

While I think that the novel is excellent and a must-read, it has its weaknesses.  There are some dialogue issues that I think are prompted by Card’s Mormonness making him adverse to profanity.  He also seems to have a problem writing how children would speak, but by putting them in the Battle School and by making Ender’s siblings super intelligent, he can avoid most of those issues.

Finally, the buggers are the off-world villains and were clearly ripped from Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.  While this normally would not bother me too much (it looked to be an homage initially), it seems that Orson Scott Card spends a lot of his free time accusing others of plagiarizing.  Before casting his stones, Card probably should have taken the time to make sure that he was without sin, and it’s clear that he’s not.  His explanation is a bit ridiculous (although I agree that the use of a bug villain is not, in and of itself, stealing, but the similarities go beyond that) and the reader should see that Card borrowed from Heinlein, probably without realizing it, and is too stupid to admit what he had done.

That in no way should keep you from reading Ender’s Game.  It is a great read that you will enjoy.

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