Anybody ever read this series of books or maybe just the original. I thought they were fricking great. Some of the later ones touched on some real thought provoking stuff.

Including how in war human forces will always do their best to minimize casualties and will be cautious. But then when the situation calls for it, rational creatures (us) go batshit insane and don't care what happens as long as they win. If that doesn't describe the human race I don't know what does. Anyways just wondering if anyone else had read em.

 

Oh God, ow. The laughing hurts.


Yes, I have read them. They were quite enjoyable.

 

Haha. As Rehio pointed out, these are well read books. I'd be stunned if the majority of people here hadn't read them.

And I also enjoyed them.

 

I read the first,2nd and 3rd I think(some story on a planet with some alien intelligence/nature/colony conflict..) a few years ago and to say the truth, I thought they aged really badly. Maybe some SF which people enjoyed in their youth but it's not up to the class of SF in the last 10-20 years in my opinion. I definitely can't remember that the writing skills really dazzled me either.

 

I've read all of the currently released books between the Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow series.

I honestly enjoyed the latter far more than the former after the original book ended-- the idea behind Speaker for the Dead and beyond is all fine and dandy on it's own, but don't dilute and alienate the character I just invested so much emotion into.

Ender in Exile more or less falls within the acceptable category though it too has a few screwball moments.

 

I guess I'm in the minority here, but I found the series to be alternatively loathesome and silly and the themes explored are morally repugnant.

In terms of writing, Card can't write children for shit--even kids at the far end of the gifted spectrum don't talk like that, something that Card, as a parent of a hundred or so kids, should understand. The writing is vanilla, with every character gelling into the next. Bean is short. Peter has tousled hair. Graff is fat. Bono has a big nose. That's pretty much the extent of anyone's physical descriptions. Jane Austen might get away with this kind of spartan prose because of the richness of her dialogue and innuendo, but Card's writing has nothing like this to its credit.

Spoiler

Most vexing for me was that the author seems to bite into the whole Ümbermensch thing hard: Ender can commit multiple acts of murder and genocide, but that's just fine because he's superior to everyone else and he's sorry. Peter can be a sadistic torturer, but that's okay because he's going to lead humanity to a new golden age. Valentine can sell out her brother and enable him to grow into the genocidaire he was bred to be, but that's okay because she's nice. Whatever.

Regarding fanfiction, you won't find very much of it for Card's work because the author's a total hardass about prosecuting it, even in cases where it's legal and appropriate. As a case in point, I used to have an Ender's Game satire here on DLP and on fanfiction.net (satire is a protected class of derivative work in the U.S.) and was strongly encouraged to take it down before prosecution for intellectual property "theft," something I have neither the patience nor time to fight.

tl;dr summary: Ender's Game sucks. Card sucks. Fuck 'em with a blowtorch.

 

I agree with Perspicacity and also this paper.

I had to stop reading the series after the first two books, because I just disagreed too much with the 'lessons' that were taught in the books.
The basic ideas of the misunderstandings between the alien races and humans, the wargames were interesting enough, but the rest of the story was just bad.

 

I loved Ender's Game, but hated how the series became increasingly moralistic. I finished them for the sake of closure, but felt that Card could have done more with it. No offense, but Piggies are pretty shitty as far as an alien species goes. He could have made them so much more epic. >_>

 

On that note I do agree the moralistic Xenocide and Speaker of the Dead was crap. I found the whole Bean saga to be more riveting. Especially Ender's Shadow. On the issue of children not behaving in such a way, I guess you have to take it with a grain of salt. These are the hundred or so smartest human beings in the world. Hell Bean isn't even human.

Seeing how none of us here are in that category, how do we truly know how they think. I really enjoyed the whole idea that the Buggers finally thought they understood humans and then at the end when Ender made the decision to win at any costs the Buggers had no idea what to do.

It's kind of like the buddy jumping on the grenade or a regiment immolating it self so the rest of the army can escape. I found that the most interesting part of the whole series. Just me though.

 

Ender's game was okay, just okay. I far preferred Enders Shadow, and the books that followed, ignoring key aspects as much as I could. (NO CHILD WAS EVER BORN. BEAN NEVER HAD KIDS. IT'S THAT FUCKING SIMPLE)

 

Never read the series, but I read a book Card wrote in the eighties about how to write creative fiction. He came off as a close-minded douche, thinking back on it, though I didn't realise it at the time.

I've never had any urge to read anything else he's ever written, despite critical acclaim. But then, I don't read any book or see any movie based on what critics say.

 

I liked Ender's Game and the Shadow series.
I didn't like the other branch.

In regard to Pers,

Spoiler

I don't really see how Ender is an Ubermench. He's racked by guilt in later books and is insulted by everyone who knows who he is. Peter, in my opinion, is a complex character. Sure, he's sadistic, but his actions(from what I've read[up to the Shadow of the Giant and Children of the Mind) have a far more positive impact than almost anyone else's in the books.

Also,"A Planet called Treason" is Card's best work.

The Alvin Maker series is excellent as well if you ignore the blatant parallels to Mormon theology.