Reviews

The Swarm by Aaron Johnston, Orson Scott Card

longl's review

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

glowormbluelady's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

themattboard's review against another edition

This book was full of inconsistencies, not just from the original Ender books, but even from the previous Formic Wars books. There were huge sections of characters just explaining things to the reader over and over again. The characters all felt one dimensional and their interactions never felt like real people speaking to one another.

badwolffan's review against another edition

4.0

Others said this book didn't move the story. I strongly disagree. The evolution and growth of characters here is subtle, but important to the overall story. The foreshadowing is interesting for a reader who has NOT yet read ENDER'S GAME. I liked it, though I didn't love it.

humanignorance's review against another edition

4.0

3.5 stars. The effect of the persistent, deliberate, selfish stupidity of senior military officers on the plot got a bit wearisome; it was a prominent theme of the previous trilogy as well. The plot was a little slow, but the well-written dialogue and character thoughts made up for it.

barkerjm's review against another edition

4.0

Enjoyed seeing the evolution of some of the features of Battle School.

1eviticus's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

adamrshields's review

4.0

Summary: Prequel series that goes back before the start of Ender's Game. 

I am in a data entry season at work, and these are the times when I look for fiction to listen to. Orson Scott Card's books are produced by Stefan Rudnicki and have a full cast, including Stefan Rudnicki. In the Acknowledgments to Card's most recent book, he thanks Rucknicki and says that the series has become an audiobook series primarily. The voices and high-quality production are consistently among the best audiobooks I listen to, even if the actual writing is not always up to the same quality.

A decade ago, Aaron Johnson started on these two prequel trilogies (a trilogy for each of the first two Formic Wars). And although I am a huge fan of Orson Scott Card generally, I was getting tired of Card's politically orientated fiction (Empire and Hidden Empire) and how some of the Ender series felt like it was just recycling old storylines. And a number of the reviews from Ender fans were not favorable. So I never picked them up. I eventually picked up The Swarm when it was in a sale but did not listen to it for months after I purchased it.

I should have realized that these are interconnected trilogies, but I did not. The Swarm is the first of a second trilogy, but primarily the characters were introduced in the first trilogy. So I was getting dropped into the middle of the story. This is a prequel series, so as Aaron Johnston says in the afterward, the reader knows where the story ends, just not how it gets there. Mazer Rackam, the mentor to Ender in Ender's Game, was the hero of the first and second Formic Wars. But he was relatively unknown at the time of the two wars because his work was classified. Again, as Aaron Johnston talks about in the Afterward, primarily what we know of Mazer Rackam's background was in a single sentence of Ender's game. That meant that Johnston, with consultation from Card, had to pay attention to that canon content (because super fans will) and yet still make the story engaging and coherent.

One of the problems with prequels is that they are written afterward, sometimes long afterward, and the tech sometimes seems more advanced. This is a common sci-fi problem because sci-fi can only write what can be conceived. And while Card has updated Ender's Game multiple times to take account of the fall of the Soviet Union and edit the story to make sense of later books, there still has been a lot of advancement in technology since the late 1970s when the story was originally being conceived. For example, there is a lot of reliance on nano-technology in The Swarm. And while Richard Feynman theorized the idea in a 1959 speech, it was not named until 1974, and there was little research until the mid-1980s, without many real advances until the last decade. (At least as I understand from a very layman's perspective.)

There are four interacting storylines. I think three of which are continuations of the previous trilogy (at least that is what it seems to me.) The characters are people that are engaging and not too perfect. Card always seems to write about extraordinarily gifted people, primarily young people. There is only one pre-teen in the story, but many of the main characters are young adults who are also extraordinarily gifted.

I believe that Johnston wrote this book with some consultation on the plot and likely editing by Card. They are both Mormon church members, and Card's frequent emphasis on child-rearing and perpetuating the species as the main role in life is still very present. Some of Card's books are more philosophical than others. This is more of an action book. I like philosophical sci-fi, but there must be enough story to make it interesting. And frankly, as Card has become more comfortable discussing his Mormon theology and libertarian political ideals, I have become less interested. This is a story not as much about conflict with the Formics as it is about conflict within humanity as it seeks to come together to defend itself against a Formic invasion. Reinhold Niebuhr is not named, but his Moral Man and Immoral Society feels like an underlying theme.

I am not sure whether to finish this trilogy or go back and read the first trilogy before I move on. One of the issues is that the final book of the second trilogy has not been published and does not have a publication date that I could find.

benlundns's review

3.0

The only reason I can give this 3 stars is because the backstory leading up to Enders Game is a little interesting. Looking back over Card's oeuvre however, all his characters suffer from a lack of depth, and that is very apparent in this book. All his characters are very one dimensional. His good guys are good, all the time and would never do something bad or even think a bad thought, while his bad guys are the lowest scum and could never possibly do something positive in the course of 400 pages.

jedicook's review against another edition

4.0

A promising new series starring Mazer Rackham and other heroes from the first Formic War. It's classic Card, and answers questions I've had since second grade (when I first read Ender's Game). Although Mazer single-handedly inventing Battle School in five minutes was a bit of a stretch.