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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
Another good addition to the Ender series. Every time I think he has played out this series, Card comes back again with another interesting tale.
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was equal parts comforting and annoying. Comforting in that it was like sitting down with a long lost friend and remembering all the good times we've had together. Annoying in that it's been a decade or more since reading Ender's Game and the details/names/events were hazy at best and took some time to get back into. Also annoying in that the ending was much like Children of the Mind--the overarching message is quite heteronormative and steeped (entrenched?) in dated, quasireligious gender stereotypes--much as the book tries not to be such (or does it?).
The pacing of the novel was a bit lopsided. Much of the action takes place too close to the end and Card relies rather heavily on plot exposition through lengthy ansible messages exchanged near the end between Ender, Graff, Ender's parents, Valentine, etc. It just seemed a little bit like sloppy storytelling: "Well, there's no easy way to communicate all of this internal struggle and character development, sooo let's put in another 5 page ansible message so we can get this story over with already!"
I think this book fills in a lot of the "missing" pieces of the Ender saga, though as Card explains in his Afterword, "none of this material was 'missing' from the original novel[s]," and if it had been included there, the stories wouldn't have worked. (He does concede that chapter 15 needed to be rewritten to match the timeline and get the details right. I'm going to have to do a side-by-side comparison now.)
All in all: this was a like an unexpected gift. I am happy to have discovered it and to have read it. I'd recommend to any fans of the Ender saga.
The pacing of the novel was a bit lopsided. Much of the action takes place too close to the end and Card relies rather heavily on plot exposition through lengthy ansible messages exchanged near the end between Ender, Graff, Ender's parents, Valentine, etc. It just seemed a little bit like sloppy storytelling: "Well, there's no easy way to communicate all of this internal struggle and character development, sooo let's put in another 5 page ansible message so we can get this story over with already!"
I think this book fills in a lot of the "missing" pieces of the Ender saga, though as Card explains in his Afterword, "none of this material was 'missing' from the original novel[s]," and if it had been included there, the stories wouldn't have worked. (He does concede that chapter 15 needed to be rewritten to match the timeline and get the details right. I'm going to have to do a side-by-side comparison now.)
All in all: this was a like an unexpected gift. I am happy to have discovered it and to have read it. I'd recommend to any fans of the Ender saga.
This was pretty good (better than the Speaker for the Dead sequels but not as good as the Bean series). I really love Orson Scott Card. He can pull me in like almost no one else. But I know how sneaky he can be too, so I can't just let myself trust all of his books. Never read Wyrms! Never!
Ender is written well in this book and transitions from his character in Ender's Game to that in Speaker for the Dead. The rest is hit or miss...mostly miss.
Some obvious gaps in logic set up major plot points and undermine them. For example, why would a space army of the future that had enough tech to be led by a boy still have very few women in it? Especially if the army is expected to become a long term colonizing force? This sets up two chapters on a sex lottery and adultery. The observation that the soldiers who ship out to fight an interstellar war can't possibly come home in their peer's lifetimes is a very good one, despite how it was squandered.
The book improves as it goes on, probably because Ender appears more and more. Perhaps Ender's Game and the original trilogy were so good because Card can only write Ender well. The other characters come across as inferior Enders, and since Ender is a freakish logical and brilliant psycho, that's a universe that is pretty strangely populated. In other words, this has the naive logic of Asimov, military bent of Heinlein, weird social situations and brilliant colonial ideas of Clarke...but taking the wrong parts from each and losing the special magic that Card brought to EG.
Some obvious gaps in logic set up major plot points and undermine them. For example, why would a space army of the future that had enough tech to be led by a boy still have very few women in it? Especially if the army is expected to become a long term colonizing force? This sets up two chapters on a sex lottery and adultery. The observation that the soldiers who ship out to fight an interstellar war can't possibly come home in their peer's lifetimes is a very good one, despite how it was squandered.
The book improves as it goes on, probably because Ender appears more and more. Perhaps Ender's Game and the original trilogy were so good because Card can only write Ender well. The other characters come across as inferior Enders, and since Ender is a freakish logical and brilliant psycho, that's a universe that is pretty strangely populated. In other words, this has the naive logic of Asimov, military bent of Heinlein, weird social situations and brilliant colonial ideas of Clarke...but taking the wrong parts from each and losing the special magic that Card brought to EG.
This "sequel" to Ender's Game was not the best Ender book. Stick with the original.
I have enjoyed the Ender series and wish now that I had read the Shadow series before this book as I think parts would have made more sense. While this book was not bad, I don't think it was nearly as good as Ender's Game or even the other Ender books. The plot moved very slow and seemed disjointed. We learn nothing of Jane's origins, which I had really hoped for, or more about the Hive Queen, which I know is covered in a later book. I wish OSC had spent just a little more time thinking this book through.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not particularly well-read in the Ender series; I've read Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, and that's about it. Having read the Wikipedia entries for the rest of the series, I realize there's a lot of context I'm missing from this book. There are characters developed in other books in the series that I know nothing about. So maybe that's why I don't have the same reaction to Ender in Exile as I had to the first two: I don't have the context for this one, whereas I didn't need context for the other two.
Which isn't to say Ender in Exile is a bad book. It's a fast read, certainly, but not a bad one. It was enjoyable, in that typical Orson Scott Card kind of way. But whereas I remember Ender's Game being extremely gripping, a true page-turner where I was emotionally involved with all the characters, Ender in Exile just didn't hold me the same way. I found that for people who are supposed to be super-intelligent, most of the main characters were written with fairly obvious motivations. Moreover, most of the point-of-view characters came across as petulant and whining. Whereas Ender from Ender's Game is doing his life's work (though he's just a child), Ender from Ender in Exile is a teenager whose greatest life's work is behind him, and that's just not as compelling a story, at least not to me. Valentine, his sister, is just along for the ride, and the rest of the main characters are only important inasmuch as they relate to Ender.
So... not a bad book, but it's probably not going to go on my top-ten list for the year.
Which isn't to say Ender in Exile is a bad book. It's a fast read, certainly, but not a bad one. It was enjoyable, in that typical Orson Scott Card kind of way. But whereas I remember Ender's Game being extremely gripping, a true page-turner where I was emotionally involved with all the characters, Ender in Exile just didn't hold me the same way. I found that for people who are supposed to be super-intelligent, most of the main characters were written with fairly obvious motivations. Moreover, most of the point-of-view characters came across as petulant and whining. Whereas Ender from Ender's Game is doing his life's work (though he's just a child), Ender from Ender in Exile is a teenager whose greatest life's work is behind him, and that's just not as compelling a story, at least not to me. Valentine, his sister, is just along for the ride, and the rest of the main characters are only important inasmuch as they relate to Ender.
So... not a bad book, but it's probably not going to go on my top-ten list for the year.
"Ender in Exile" is run-of-the-mill Orson Scott Card, which means that it's good, and worth reading, but not great or life-changing, as some of his books have been for me. This book felt disjointed, with at least three fairly unrelated stories in the life of Ender being strung together. I think this is because the book was meant to tie up loose ends in the "Enderverse" (Gosh I dislike that term) rather than telling a new standalone story.
Since this book is trying to fill in the gaps in Ender's history, I would recommend reading at least "Ender's Game" and the "Ender's Shadow" trilogy before you read "Ender in Exile." The book's events occur before "Xenocide," so those aren't required reading here.
Since this book is trying to fill in the gaps in Ender's history, I would recommend reading at least "Ender's Game" and the "Ender's Shadow" trilogy before you read "Ender in Exile." The book's events occur before "Xenocide," so those aren't required reading here.