I read EG for the first time in the 9th grade. I'm 38 now and have read EG once every year or two since. I usually buy the paperback, read it, then give it to someone else. I've read Speaker probably half as many times, Xenocide 3-4 times, and the same for CotM. I read the Bean series once and listened to Ender in Exile on CD.
I decided to re-read the series again in anticipation for the movie. Below are my thoughts on the series. I'll edit as I get through them again.
Ender's Game: Still my favorite book. I remember the first time I read it, I could hardly get through Chapter 9 (Val and Peter doing their thing). I wanted to get back to space. There seems to be a huge difference between Ender pre-commander and post-commander. I don't like the boy he is as much after. I can't say it's the loss of innocense, he never really had it. I don't know. Still my emotional favorite book.
Speaker for the Dead: EG is so special that if anyone asks, I will say it is my favorite, but Speaker is such a close second. It's probably more of a pleasure to read. I love the story of the Piggies and the Human/Ender bond is really cool.
Xenocide: My least favorite book in the EG series. I really don't like the whole OCD line tracing thing. I got through it, but it's not one I would read if I weren't reading the whole series.
Children of the Mind: Better than Xenocide but not a whole lot. I don't like that Ender "died". I'm glad Jane/Val lived. Peter annoyed me until he got the rest of Ender's aiua. Probably the same as Xenocide, I wouldn't read it except for the series.
Posts: 1766 | Registered: Feb 2006
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I agree with you on the first two books. I've read EG about eight times, SftD about five times, and the other two twice each. However, the second two books were pretty good to me, and I thought it was interesting that Ender died, not because he deserved it or even because it felt like "his time", but because he had suffered through so much and had built up so much pain over the course of his life, he deserved to die, and then start over again fresh.
That's what made his transition into Peter so interesting. Yes, Peter isn't the exact same person because he doesn't have the same experiences, but it's still Ender's soul in there. think of it like reincarnation. Of all the humans in all the Hundred Worlds, Ender Wiggin was the only one who earned the right to start over. That was fitting to me in a way.
Posts: 1324 | Registered: Feb 2011
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I never thought of it like that. Great way to put it. He definitely earned the right to get a "do over".
Posts: 1766 | Registered: Feb 2006
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I actually love the story elements set on Path in Xenocide, but I find the culture and philosophy very fascinating.
Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Just finished Earth Unaware & loved it. Good storytelling is the first requirement, and the next is realistic characters. Only nitpick was the frequent reference to spacecraft coming to a stop for spacewalk safety reasons. In relation to what, Earth, asteroid, galaxy? Scientifically jarring. Sorry, otherwise excellent and am looking forward to the next two books.
Posts: 10 | Registered: Jan 2013
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I assume that the reference to "coming to a stop" means reversing thrust until there is no forward or backward momentum. Sure, the craft is still floating in the void, and technically moving, but it isn't moving *toward* anything anymore.
It's more like: "We are moving on the X axis at Y speed. Reverse thrust until our movement on the X axis equals zero."
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Thanks for helping me to illustrate my point. The term "no forward or backward momentum" is meaningless unless it has a reference point. If you mean relative to where the space craft left then it is still moving at 10s of thousands of kph relative to the core of our galaxy as is all our solar system, but this speed will also be very different to that of the destination as all bodies are in motion relative to each other. If the term was "reducing velocity to the average of the surrounds" (space junk and pebbles) so as to minimize the chance of being hit by particles then sure I'm understanding of the reason.
Posts: 10 | Registered: Jan 2013
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I think "reducing velocity to the average of the surrounds" is what was intended.
If you read in a book "Dustin stopped his car to avoid splattering any more bugs on the front windshield" you wouldn't need to know my point of origin or my destination to understand the sentence. You wouldn't need to know what my momentum had been (55 mph? 35 mph?) or what I stopped in relation to (the nearest Bank of America branch? Other cars? A seagull overhead?). The assumption would be that I was stopping relative to the movement of the bugs.
And I completely understand that I'm comparing a relatively 2-D space (a road on the surface of the earth) with 3-D space travel, so the analogy isn't great. But that's how I interpreted it when I read the book, so it didn't annoy me.
Thanks for explaining your point.
Posts: 298 | Registered: Sep 2011
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I just picked up a copy of Xenocide, First Edition, Signed - with a slight tear on the cover... For $3 at Half Price books. Was pretty happy with the purchase.
I need to re-read all of the Ender's Series before the movie. If I can get around to it. Been jumping around in my reading a lot lately, might get back to it.
Posts: 164 | Registered: Sep 2012
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