posted
I'm not to sure how card plans to link both quartets in a single book but I do have an intriging idea which I hope will spark a flame to make a fire. If Card could within the last Bean saga book have him cured and sent to a distant planet that would pass time on earth by over 3000 years then have him somehow learn of all that has happened. It would be even more entertaining to see him in conflict with the new Peter in a battle of politics and a battle with Miro in tactics with a fleet. An awsem book to settle the series once and for all. Or perhaps maybe to start a new and awsem quartet that is sure to add to his current list of great achievements and awards. This route is sure to do good. Wouldn't you agree?
Posts: 112 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Neither do I. It would feel like a B movie series, or a TV series where people are kept on despite anything realistic simply because they are popular. Oh no! Bean is our best character who gives us the most ratings. He can't die, therefore we will suddenly discover a miracle cure. So now we still have Bean and he gets to battle Peter, only it is a more powerful Peter, with Ender's auia, yes, and Miro's fleet and it is 3000 years into the future!
It would get melodramatic. Now, there is nothing wrong with melodrama, but it rarely is powerful. It rarely touches our hearts. Call me a masochist, but I want to cry when Petra loses Bean, and find out what she does, and what Peter does and how those events will tie in to what we've already seen 3000 into the universe's future and what will happen after that because of how Bean's death affected Petra. People die, but that doesn't stop things from happening or the ones who loved them from having to deal with it. That is how it is in real life, and that is what I want to see in my stories.
Does that mean that I want reality in my science fiction? I damn well do. Just because we have a universe with futuristic science and technology (or magic and creatures) to wow the reader does not mean we can let the human elements get mediocre. A truely good piece of liturature will beautifully combine both speculative reality and what it is to be human (or sentient, anyway)
quote: Now, there is nothing wrong with melodrama, but it rarely is powerful. It rarely touches our hearts. Call me a masochist, but I want to cry when Petra loses Bean
Amka,
you want it "real" but you also want it "predictable"?
anyhow, I thought in the last Bean book that Petra was already well on her way to dealing with the loss of Bean (and taking appropriately realistic measures). Bean, on the other hand, was being set up for severe turmoil. *shrugs* That was my read.
posted
Yes. Some things should, infact, be predictable. Tell me, if a miracle cure WAS found for Bean, would you think "Wow, I didn't know THAT was going to happen." No. That is a predictable outcome, as well. Suspense does not always ride on unpredictability, but on predicting two or more possibilities, then worrying and hoping about which outcome will occur. There are two possibilities with Bean: he will die or he won't. It wouldn't be tremendously unpredictable to find that Bean gets cured. But then I would feel that Card had simply been manipulating my feelings for the sake of attachment and emotional effect, rather than understanding the pain of the characters.
Unpredictability for the sake of itself produces only incoherency. There is a certain predictable course for all stories that are meaningful to almost all readers. We call it plot. There is a problem, and it gets solved or it doesn't. We complain when this pattern is deviated from and typically reject the story.
Posts: 438 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
"pleasantly surprised," then? Not outside the scope of the predictable (i.e. plausible) outcomes, but comfortably constrained within the regularity of - and I'm not sure you what mean by "almost all readers" as you seem to be making a point about genre rather than plot - expectation?
posted
The only predicatable thing about life is that it is unpredictable. Trite, but true. Thank heavens the stories are lovely works of fiction , , ,
Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
I think it's safe to say that nobody else is ever saying whatever it is you are saying, fallow.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
who says that bean has to be cured in order to be sent to a distant planet where tons of years can pass on earth?
why not send him out of necessity, allow him to begin the fight against neopeter, miro, or whoever else, let him die in the midst, and have someone be forced to step into his shoes?
realistic, emotional, true to the character, and sets up a cliffhanger - is anyone as good as bean? bean's son? anyone else?
Posts: 5 | Registered: May 2004
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posted
Guys.. Bean is going to die.. What we should be thinking about is what these last two books have been leading to.. I mean cripes, Shadow Puppets basically was smearing it in our face, Bean's offspring.. then next book will probably do the whole death thing with Bean, then kinda span over some time to the time nearing Peter's death, and the space expansion which will probably include the whole link when we find out that Bean's children hopped on a shuttle and flew to Path or whatever and that's how they link up with the future or whatever.. - But my main interest and hope for the link book, is Peter and Wangmu.. my favorite duo ever.. there's alot of potnetial sitting there I think Scott could go many directions with..
posted
Pender (as I like to call him) has a full life with um... Wang Mu? (I can't remember which one was which) ahead of him. As for letting Bean live making it seem cheap, I disagree. It makes sense to me. The only way to cure him is to change his DNA, and the only Enderverse way to change adult DNA is a descolada alteration. It's almost as if those two ends need to be connected.
Posts: 238 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
No. He would just stop growing. He'd still retain his intellegence.
And WTF is with all of this "it's not realistic if he doesn't die"? It's frickin' science fiction! Anything is possible in science fiction, and on literary grounds it's not a deus machina if it's at the beggining or middle of the book (the resolution to the story wouldn't be saving Bean, it would be something with the Descoladores).
Don't you think that Bean's fatalism is a dead giveaway that he won't die? Fatalism in books is usually the opposite for movies (IE: Bill Paxton in Aliens).
posted
OK, here's my take. Often in movies and books, death is seen as the ULTIMATE EVIL. By that, I mean that the worst possible thing that can happen is for the hero to die. It doesn't matter how much good he does, or how happy a life he had -- if he dies at the end of the movie, people get upset.
In modern society, we are very much insulated from death. Show of hands -- how many people have had a loved one die in their home? Me neither. Today, we have a place where people go away to die -- the hospital.
From what I can tell from his writings (not just his fiction), because of his faith, Card does not seem to feel that death is such a bad thing. Death is like birth -- it is a passage from one stage to the next in an eternal existance. While it is sad when a loved one leaves our lives, death is not a bad thing.
I think that you would have to admit that it would require some sort of Deus Ex Machina for Bean to die. But because of he views death (in my mind -- I don't know OSC. I know I am putting thoughts in his head. This is speculation. I hope I'm not offending anybody, least of all OSC), I don't think that he would want to sacrifice anything in the story just so that a favorite character won't die quite yet.
Because, after all, everybody still dies.
Anyway, that's what I think. It is for similar reasons that I don't want Card to go out of his way to make Bean live.
And to top it all off, I have read that at a book signing, Card has stated that Bean will die. Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote: And WTF is with all of this "it's not realistic if he doesn't die"? It's frickin' science fiction!
Attitudes like this are the reason that science fiction on television and pretty much in the movies doesn't rise up to become great, and why it usually isn't very good. "They won't care, they're Science Fiction Fans and anything barely plausible, as long as it is cool looking is going to work for those idiots. When I was young, I used to watch everything science fiction I could find, but the older I got the more I realized that most of it sucked. The increase in SF on TV has certainly not improved it's quality.
Typically I settle for watching most science fiction MST3000 style now, which is fun but meaningless. I avoid reading authors who have proven that is all they can hack out. Frickin' science fiction better be realistic to me or I won't finish the story. Duex ex machina, even in the beginning, better follow all the world's rules or else it is still seen as false and worthy of a good eye roll.
Posts: 438 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
You missed the point of what I was saying. I didn't mean that because it's science fiction you can do anyhting you want. I meant that because it's science fiction, Bean doesn't have to die as early as he thought he would. Don't you think it makes sense that Bean should help with the Descoladores?
Posts: 238 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Sure Bean will die. I'm curious to find out whether it will be by the mechanism he anticipates or by some hand dealt to him that he didn't expect.
Either way, I figure a daughter to figure prominantly in his last moments.
posted
Ender didn't really die, and Peter came back from the grave. Well, sort of. Miro was healed. But I'm not really sure who would would be able to bring him back through outside/inside travel.
Maybe if the need were great enough (like they just aren't smart enough to oppose the descoladores), the Ender aiua in Peter might decide to deliberately try that again. And if they bring back too many more folks from the dead it's going to start resembling the Dune series. Especially if the only reason the descoladores are doing what the do is to bring to pass the return of their forbear, Bean.
I just hope Alvin and Bean don't die the same year.
posted
Here's a thought: Is it possible that "outside" there is not only no where, but no when also? Space and time seem to go together a lot, and it actually makes sense that there would be no when also. But thinking about it, there would be no way to pull it off, not because of the physics, but b/c Jane couldn't hold the ship in just her Val mind, and unless her aiua can pass info through time, there'd be no storage space in the past. Meh, it sounded like a good idead when I started to type it Posts: 238 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
What if it was Beans offspring that would travel till 3000 years have passed and became the allies of the descoladors to set was against miro and stop peter and wang mu from taking over star ways congress? I agree now that bean should and will die!
Posts: 112 | Registered: Jun 2004
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