And, who do you like better: Ender or Bean?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
No.
Posted by Nick (Member # 4311) on :
MPH, be nice.
Seriously, though, I think the Ender books are the better series, but it usually appeals to an older crowd. The Shadow books are often more liked by younger kids.
Posted by Sobenz (Member # 6517) on :
I enjoyed the Ender series far more than the Shadow/Bean series. There were a whole ton of small things in the Shadow series that just didn't jive with me correctly. It Hegemon and Puppets also seemed a little fluffed to make 'em fit into two books, IMO.
I also enjoyed Ender's psychological discussions over Shadow's gene discussions.
Posted by cRaZy ToM (Member # 6474) on :
shadow... im still reading SFTD but its a SLOW read copmpared to the bean series.... the Military Tactics spoken abotu in shadow books r amazingly well written
Posted by Kabederlin (Member # 6304) on :
They all have different qualities. I liked both because a philisophical and militaristic person.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
OK, I'll answer. I like Ender's Game/Speaker for the Dead best of all. I like Xenocide/Children of the Mind least of all. The Bean books lie inbetween.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I like the Ender series better... By the time I got halfway to the last Bean book I was rather frustrated and annoyed.
Posted by St. Yogi (Member # 5974) on :
I like the Ender series better. I think Speaker for the Dead is one of the greatest books ever and I also like Xenocide, but I don't like Children of the Mind that much.
I like Ender more. Bean can be a real bastard sometimes.
Posted by Aeroth (Member # 6269) on :
The Ender book and the Speaker Trilogy for me. Speaker for The Dead was AMAZING, Xenocide was the almost-perfect middle book, and Children of the Mind brought the series to a satisfying finish.
However, I think Bean's the cooler and more interesting character.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I have a personal beef against Xenocide. When I read it, Children of the Mind had not been written yet. I was so annoyed at the ending. "This isn't a book! It's only half of one!"
Posted by gwan (Member # 6194) on :
As I have said in the past I love the shadow mainly because of Bean. But I hated Shadow puppets. Shadow of the Hegemon was my favorite and then probably Speaker for the dead.
Posted by Nick (Member # 4311) on :
quote: Children of the Mind brought the series to a satisfying finish.
Not for me. I wanted to know what happened to the descoladores. Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
I prefer the Ender books, though I did enjoy the shadow books as well. I think that was partly because I liked ender more than bean. I also felt the Ender books were deeper. I thought Jane was a cool feature of the Ender books as well.
Posted by Sadok Jijike (Member # 6570) on :
The thing that authors do is always keep you wanting more.. If you really want to know what happens to the descoladores.. Make your own story.
And
I DON'T KNOW
The comment about young people like Bean better isn't all true. I think my favorite is Enders Game but then Speaker. But its hard to choose... they are my most favorite books ever.
Posted by Kabederlin (Member # 6304) on :
No statistic ever placed will ever bee 100% true, Sadok
Posted by Da_Goat (Member # 5529) on :
quote:OK, I'll answer. I like Ender's Game/Speaker for the Dead best of all. I like Xenocide/Children of the Mind least of all. The Bean books lie inbetween.
Hey, me too! Let's start a clique!
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:If you really want to know what happens to the descoladores.. Make your own story.
Unfortunately, copyright laws being what they are, you are not allowed to do that and share it with others.
[ May 26, 2004, 10:12 AM: Message edited by: mr_porteiro_head ]
Posted by Da_Goat (Member # 5529) on :
Unless you have express permission, but OSC has already said he won't give any.
Posted by Angelina (Member # 6573) on :
You really aren't allowed to make that up and share it with others even if no one is charging anything and it's just for fun? What about fan fiction and stuff like that?
Posted by Nick (Member # 4311) on :
You'll see why fanfictions are damaging to an author's work in this pweb thread. Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
I like the Bean books better, but I can't put my finger on why...
..perhaps it is only that they were more-recently read in my mind, so the ideas are fresh in my memory, which makes me believe I like them better.
I'll go back and read the Ender series again and see if I feel the same way.
Farmgirl
Posted by St. Yogi (Member # 5974) on :
I liked Ender's Shadow better the first time I read it, but I think that's just because I got to hang out in the Battle School again Posted by Angelina (Member # 6573) on :
Nick,
I see the reasoning now for the decision against fan fiction. I also liked that one guy's comment; America doesn't need another excuse to be any less original. Very very true. I'm also glad you pointed that out because I never knew that site existed
Angie
Posted by Kabederlin (Member # 6304) on :
Anyone who actually lets fanfiction damage the original authors work is kind of moronic, don;t you think. It's obvious, because of quality and other factors, that the true author didn't write it. That should be the end of the story, case closed. There's no harm in thinking of your own ending to a story, as long as you specify that it is YOUR own ending, and not in any way connected to the views of the author. That is to say it's not sanctioned by the author either. If anything I'd say an author would want people to show so much intrest in his work that they wrote their own side stories off of it. Isn't that what that whole Battle School forum is for?
Fan fiction is exactly that. The readers of it are the only people who ruin the true story. Saying it's illegal to share a version of a story is like saying it's illegal to make your own music videos from your favorite songs, which they do at numerous theme parks and people do it on computers all the time. You just have to give credit where credit is due and make sure that people realize it's fan fiction.
I can't honestly see someone refusing to buy one of Card's new novels because they read some fanfics set in the universe Card created. The whole scenario with the lemonade that one person said on the pweb thread. Those three scenarios were intentionally there to HARM the lemonade sellers profit. Fanfiction is more like a person coming over and helping Card make the lemonade for the pleasure of it, asking no pay.
EDIT: For the record I don't read fanfiction. Just being a devil's advocate in this argument.
[ May 26, 2004, 08:36 PM: Message edited by: Kabederlin ]
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I have not read much fanfic in my life, but it bugs me that I don't have the option of reading Ender/Bean fanfic.
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
For the record, here is my two cents.
I can understand an author not wanting to see any fanfiction made about their series. It would bother me to know that people had my characters out there doing weird stuff that I didn't say they could do.
But I can also, being an on-and-off fanfic author myself, understand the wish to use characters from another person's universe as if they were your own. Sometimes you have a desire to continue the story, especially if it hasn't been continued at all, or won't be. Sometimes you feel the need the bridge the gaps in the narrative. I don't think it's fair to call the author's unimaginitive. Especially since many of them are young and inexperienced. I did a lot of my learning experiences writing fanfic, and I wouldn't write as well as I do now if I hadn't experimented with them. I admit, I did and do lack in some areas, but that's something I 'll have to work through myself.
That said, the author's wishes are tantamount. If people want to write fanfic, they pretty much can, as long as they're not trying to pass it off as the author's work, as long as they're not going beyond the author's wishes by posting it in public. There is very little the author can do to stop them. But true fans would not go against the author's wishes.
My fandom happens to be based in Japan, where, not only do the authors generally not mind fanfic, it is legal to sell comics with characters who are not your own. Copyright law is very different there. So I'm off scott free. YAY!
Now time for bed...
Posted by Lindsay (Member # 6567) on :
Ender. I cared for Bean, but I wanted to know Ender. Actually to be more precise, I wanted him to know me, wanted to be important to him.
The Shadow books had too much politics for me. I prefer the "regular life" plots of speaker and xeno to the war and politics of the shadow series.
Posted by Tome (Member # 6587) on :
quote: Seriously, though, I think the Ender books are the better series, but it usually appeals to an older crowd. The Shadow books are often more liked by younger kids.
Not true. I started reading this series not even a year ago (November, I think) and I have read through Shadow Puppets, and I like the Ender series more. Why? I like the character of Ender more, for one thing. Not to mention the fact that the Ender Quartet had a lot more things going on. New species, Jane, Hive Queen, Descolada, Lustiana Fleet. The odds just seemed so stacked in that series, making it more interesting (to me)
Posted by Nick (Member # 4311) on :
Do you speak for all younger kids Tome? I'm guessing you're younger because your post seems to empathize with them.
I can't see why your post refutes what I said.
Posted by Anthro (Member # 6087) on :
I read the Ender series when I was fairly young, and it blew my mind open. Seriously.
Most of what I'd read up to then was just a narrative, not a story. There were so many layers to the Ender books, and I think as I was reading the series, my mind sort of evolved into something closer to what it is now. After looking at Lusitania, I saw poetic beauty in nearly everything.
To me, the Shadow series was a fun read, but it was mostly just a narrative. Only bits of story.
I never liked Ender that much, actually. He felt like such a passive character. I prefer the younger generation--Wang Mu, (New) Peter, Jane, Miro--they weren't afraid to stick their hands into the weave of the universe and give it a good tug.
Oh, and Olhado is one of my favorite characters of all time.
Posted by Nick (Member # 4311) on :
Hm. I would have to say my favorite character of all time is Luet. Posted by Pausanias (Member # 6586) on :
I don't have a favourite. None of the books stood out as being better or worse than any other - they were all excellent, to my mind. Where Ender's Game is a classic, and Xenocide and Children of the Mind broadened Ender's adult character, I find the Bean books fascinating. I choose... not to choose.
Evasion, indecision... not bad for a first post, don't you think?
Posted by Tome (Member # 6587) on :
quote: read the Ender series when I was fairly young, and it blew my mind open. Seriously.
Most of what I'd read up to then was just a narrative, not a story. There were so many layers to the Ender books, and I think as I was reading the series, my mind sort of evolved into something closer to what it is now. After looking at Lusitania, I saw poetic beauty in nearly everything.
That's exactly what it was like for me.
And, no, I don't speak for every younger person, I speak for myself, and just meant to say that the Ender series didn't always apeal to the older people. And I'm 14, so, yes, I am younger.
Posted by IComeAnon (Member # 6657) on :
I have only read Ender's Game, Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets. I barely read halfway through Xenocide before I put it down and refused to read any more. If I were to give an answer based on those three books, Bean, because he is a lot more like me.
Out of those books, I think I liked Shadow of the Hegemon the best. Shadow Puppets was harder to follow (good, because then I can gloat about me getting it and other people not just kidding), and I understood the motives behind the actions of characters (good), but I still didn't like the way Petra comes across as a... I don't know, crazed Bean fanatic. Also, the only plausible reason I can see for making Suri falling in love with Virlomi is so that Virlomi has an excuse to get out of Riberao Preto and go to India, and her presence in India is crucial to the story, but the Suri-Virlomi line itself comes up to nothing (unless someone can enlighten me on this?). Oh, but the best thing is, Bean blows Achilles' eye out.
I can imagine the events in Shadow of the Hegemon taking place, but not quite in Shadow Puppets. I do not think that any girl who has spent nine years away from home, around boys, would want her bedroom frilly pink, for one thing Petra falling in love with Bean I can understand, but marrying him takes it one step too far (and yet is necesary! Shadow Puppets is such a painful read). Perhaps this is because I think I think like Bean and would not have done what he did, but if I think I think like Bean, I probably don't. For one thing, I don't have Anton's key turned Posted by IComeAnon (Member # 6657) on :
By the way, I'm 14 too. But I hated Xenocide for exactly the reasons stated by Tome: new species, Jane, Lusitania, descolada (although I admit I only read halfway through Xenocide and didn't read Speaker for the Dead, so my opinion is clearly not as objective as it should be). I enjoyed the books I read in the Shadow series much more (Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets) because, well, they made me think.
Posted by PresbyGirl (Member # 6655) on :
I like the Ender quartet better... but I also love the Shadow books.
As to the kids liking the Bean books more... I would think a good bit of the political and military stuff would be over their heads a bit.
Posted by IComeAnon (Member # 6657) on :
quote: As to the kids liking the Bean books more... I would think a good bit of the political and military stuff would be over their heads a bit.
The politics and military stuff - exactly why I like them better.
Posted by Melchior (Member # 5519) on :
Impossible to decide. Each have their strong points, and very few weak ones. The complement each other, don't compete with each other.
Posted by Achilles_de_Flandres (Member # 6672) on :
Out of the companion books (EG and ES) EG. But overall series, S.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
IMO, it is impossible to enjoy Xenocide or CotM without reading Speaker for the Dead. I say that, thinking that EG/SftD should have been left alone, except for the one chapter in Xenocide of Valentine visiting Olhado's family, which should have been a short story by itself.
The Shadow series, to me, is an example of an author deciding to TELL me something, rather than SHOW me something. Some of the monologues in the Shadow series approach a Lovercraft-esque plateau, in terms of jarring and heavy-handed writing.
-Bok
[ July 12, 2004, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: Bokonon ]
Posted by PetraFan (Member # 4735) on :
Oh, Ender over Bean any day.
As for the books, Ender's character seemed to have a natural leadership quality and mad everyone feel like they were on his list.
Bean on the other hand was way more sadistict to be an uplifting character. So, Ender series over Shadow.
Anyway, you feel for Ender more than Bean(even though both are fantastic creations of OSC).
Toodles,
PetraFan
[ July 27, 2004, 06:38 PM: Message edited by: PetraFan ]
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:The Shadow series, to me, is an example of an author deciding to TELL me something, rather than SHOW me something.
It's not surprising that OSC would tell instead of show -- that's how he thinks things should be done.
From Uncle Orson's Writing Class:
quote: You said: "I made it a point throughout the novel to not tell motivations, but try to show them."
And you did this because ... of those morons who told you "show don't tell"? Because motivation is unshowable. It must be told. (In fact, most things must be told.) The advice "show don't tell" is applicable in only a few situations -- most times, most things, you tell-don't-show. I get so impatient with this idiotic advice that has been plaguing writers for generations.
Motivation is precisely the one thing that cannot be shown. What movies do -- using dialogue or most-obvious-assumed-motive to communicate motive is actually not very good because there are no shades or subtleties and rarely can be (it just takes so darn much screen time!). It's one of the reasons why movies simply aren't very good at subtle motivation, and constantly have to reach for obvious audience sympathies ...
When you are using a POV character, the single most important thing that you must tell the reader is the full purpose of what the character is doing, as soon as the character knows it himself. If you do not, you are cheating, and the audience gets less and less patient with you, until they lose interest because you are not telling them the most important information that people come to stories -- especially fiction -- to receive!
[ July 28, 2004, 02:18 AM: Message edited by: mr_porteiro_head ]
Posted by Caitlin Strand (Member # 6631) on :
bump cuz this is interesting, and i liked bean. i dunno why... probobly all the different ideas and politics and war and figuring out exactly how bean isnt human and how bean was always a prick and ender went all civilian and weak, and... i could go on and on... Also, Xenocide and children were WAY too long and boring. I liked speaker and Jane rocks too. I have a question. At the end of enders game, they were on a planet. Was there a story about that planet? Did i just miss it? I no it wasnt Lustianna. O, (might as well kill all questions now) was Jane made from battle school's mind game? And why does it seem to me that Bean never really gets the big picture? Poke died and so did Sister Carlotta did too because of his shortsightedness. And Sister Carlotta dieing kinda shot down Bean too. I mean, the 1 time he reaches out, the person he reached out to died... After that, how did he get together with Petra? wow... This got complicated for what started as a bump...
[ August 06, 2004, 01:50 PM: Message edited by: Caitlin Strand ]
Posted by Stratpop (Member # 6756) on :
bump cuz this is interesting, and i liked bean. i dunno why... probobly all the different ideas and politics and war and figuring out exactly how bean isnt human and how bean was always a prick and ender went all civilian and weak, and... i could go on and on... Also, Xenocide and children were WAY too long and boring. I liked speaker and Jane rocks too. I have a question. At the end of enders game, they were on a planet. Was there a story about that planet? Did i just miss it? I no it wasnt Lustianna. O, (might as well kill all questions now) was Jane made from battle school's mind game? And why does it seem to me that Bean never really gets the big picture? Poke died and so did Sister Carlotta did too because of his shortsightedness. And Sister Carlotta dieing kinda shot down Bean too. I mean, the 1 time he reaches out, the person he reached out to died... After that, how did he get together with Petra? wow... This got complicated for what started as a bump...
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Stratpop -- did you read "Speaker for the Dead"?? THe book between Ender's Game and Xeonicide?
Farmgirl
Posted by BeansAchilles (Member # 6813) on :
I don't really like the Ender Saga's after the original because I lose interest without war and strategy... J/K... but I will always like the Shadow saga's better because I love Bean's pre-xenocide/petra/finding-out-he-was-human stages... because then he was cold and emotionless just like I always thought of my self ... there is no emotionless face so this will have to do ':I'...
quote:"Beans Achilles Heel are Feelings"
-me
Posted by BeansAchilles (Member # 6813) on :
I was just wondering if there is anything about Bean FarmGirl doesn't post on before me???
Posted by Anthro (Member # 6087) on :
I liked Children of the Mind and Xenocide because Miro is one of my favorite OSC characters.
Posted by Disney Reporter (Member # 6817) on :
To hard of a choice. I love them both so much. Keep up the awesome work Orson.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Sorry, BeanAchilles!
I just spend WAY too much time on Hatrack...
Farmgirl
Posted by Drake Coluber (Member # 6896) on :
Personally, I liked Bean's story better. Of course, I love Ender, but Bean is just... Iunno
Posted by Just another Dharma bum (Member # 6879) on :
I liked the Bean series much more than the Ender series. I can't wait for Shadow of the Giant.
Posted by Altįriėl of Dorthonion (Member # 6473) on :
I like Ender more because for some reason, I picture him as being this really hot dude...where as Bean remains a child and then a preteen. Besides, Bean will die and Ender lives at least 3000 years...Oh! and with that awsome side-kick Jane out to destroy Starways...*Adrenaline rush*
Posted by Napster-{KD}- (Member # 6967) on :
i personally enjoy the bean series better, maybe it seems like there is more political science or something, but i personally don't highly favor one or the other. Bean, however, i think is a very interesting character.
-Napster-{KD}-
Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :
I liked the Ender saga better,
Bean's series is a long, political conflict that does have the first book significantly different, but the richness and variety is not quite as much as Ender's series.
My favourite book was Speaker For The Dead, because it was the most sophisticated (all Children Of The Mind lovers, I know about the complexity. But I seem to sense less sophistication and less connection to Ender himself; moreover, it's COTM + Xenocide together).
Bean's series, while sophisticated, is quite dry. I didn't like the somewhat brief references to Alai and Suryawong. Nothing even similar to what was dedicated to Petra or Peter. In SFTD, anyone older than about 7 (meaning everyone BUT Grego and Quara; this, of course, excludes Olhado exclusively) had an important part, even though references were also quite brief.
But we haven't yet read SOTG; how can we speak fully?
Jonny
Posted by Quimby2999 (Member # 7044) on :
Hmm. . . Bean or Ender. Tough choice. I'd have to say the Shadow series over the Ender quartet. Though I did like Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead I began to like Ender less and less in Xenocide and hated him in Children of the Mind. Mainly because he became a boring old adult, and what was with his loyalty to Novinha? While I like the adolescent romantic young hero aspect of the Bean series because he never had to grow up to become a bland uninteresting adult like Ender who was waaay too devoted to his bitchy wife . Plus the military and political aspects of the Shadow series were more intersting than the Ender series' . . . philosiphy? Anyway that's me trying to cash in my 2 cents.
Posted by ChaosTheory (Member # 7069) on :
Well both were the best series ever.
The Ender Quartet is much much more epic and covers a lot more emotions and philosophy.
The Shadow series had more action and more tactics and strategy.
I personally think that both are equal and I like both of them the same.
Posted by Beanny (Member # 7109) on :
Those who claim that Bean and Ender are similar, or that Bean is a literary and almost worthless replicate of Ender, "don't know zits from zeroes" (ES, Bean to Bonzo's supporters). The whole point, in my opinion, is that Bean and Ender are opposites.
e.g. Ender's Shadow, VICTOR - Guesswork (chpt. 21): "So Ender, the nice middle-class American boy, kills the kid who wants to beat him up in the bathroom, and Bean, the hoodlum street kid, turns a serial killer to the enforcemt". That's number one. Number two: "Ender was good at building teams, but he beat Bonzo hand to hand, one on one. And then Bean, aloner who had almost no friends after a year in school, he beats Achilles be assembling a team to be his defense and his witnesses."
Moreover, Ender lives (relatively, of course) 3000 years, whilst Bean lives only to the age of 20 (to the most). However, Ender lived an empty life, without love or happiness, and Bean lived a short life with the people he loved.
So, in a way, Ender ends up as Bean, and Bean becomes Ender's beginning.
I wonder if OSC thought so when he wrote the Shadow series.
Posted by Altáriël of Dorthonion (Member # 6473) on :
I prefered Ender's
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I prefer the first two in Ender's, and like least the last two. The Bean books are inbetween.
Posted by Peter (Member # 4373) on :
I absolutely loved all of them.
The shadow books are in a league with EG, they are written similarly, and read about the same. I loved these because they gave a quick look into the person, but you felt as if you really knew them, they were beautifully written.
The other three books of the EG series are absolutly my favorite books of all time. Probably because they dwell into the deeper issues, and possibly because I agree with the decisions they make. One of the main thing that drove me to SftD, Xeno, and CotM is this line in the first paragraph in the intro to SftD
quote:Indeed, in my mind this was the "real" book; if i hadn't have been trying to write Speaker for the Dead back in 1983, there would never have been a novel of Ender's Game at all.
If I remember correctly, he goes on to say that he wrote Ender's Game into a novel so that he could tell the story in SftD. Since i see SftD, Xeno, and CotM as a series, I don't see how you could like some but not the other's, they are written as closely in style as EG is to the shadow series (so far) as SftD is written to Xeno and CotM.
I want to say that I am not trying to degrade EG and the shadow series, there were excellent books. I believe, though, that there is more of a story to The Speaker trilogy than the rest.
I still want to see if and how Card ties the EG(including SftD, Xeno, and CotM) and ES series together. no matter what I cannot wait to see how it ends....
Edit: Quimby, What part of spawning clones of your brother and sister (who are technically you), being in three different places at once and savinganother world, helping another abtain their freedom from congress, and saving a biological entity traped in a computer is boring? I don't see how that is boring, not as fast paced maybe, but boring?
I know I'm "yelling" (since it's hard to yell through a computer) at you for your opinion, but im doing this in hopes that you may give them a second chance.
[ December 11, 2004, 07:57 PM: Message edited by: Peter ]
Posted by Quimby2999 (Member # 7044) on :
Actually I didn't think the Ender series was boring at all. I loved it and it's characters straight trough until the end of CotM. I just thought that Ender himself was boring and even then I only meant most of Xenocide and all of CotM. I just thought in Xenocide he was overshadowed by some of the other characters and in CotM he just laid around and died (for which I blame Novinha).
Posted by gingerjam (Member # 7113) on :
I have to say, i've been reading Ender's game over and over for the past 10 years and i love it, but the speaker/xenocide/children triology after it aren't a natural follow on for me... I like them, but they're a more intense read and i still get bored reading about Qing-jao it really is a whole different story...jane/Ender/Miro are far more interesting...
if i want to keep reading after Ender's i move to the shadow series...at first I hated how Bean was smarter and second guessed Ender cos it killed his genius a little, but i love the game of RISK which the whole series was kinda inspired by so i find the politics stuff in shadow pretty fun...
Posted by Master Kakashi (Member # 6165) on :
I like the Shadow series better, probably because I am younger and I'm into the romance thing between Petra and Bean. Also, when he was on the streets, he showed how smart he was at the beginning, and the lifestyle of the gangs. It just immediately caught my attention and drew me in. But I do like the Ender's series, I'm not sure if I can explain it.The last book I read was Speaker of the Dead, which was awesome. But between Ender and Bean, it'd have to be Bean.
Posted by dinzy (Member # 6858) on :
I like the Speaker trilogy more but I prefer Ender's Shadow to Ender's game. I actually refused to read it for a while because I thought it wasn't going to be that good. What a pleasant surprise that was. I still want to know what is up with the Descoladores so I can't wait to see how he ties it all together.
Posted by Jqueasy (Member # 7085) on :
I am currently reading shadow of the hegemon, so I cant say right now which series i like better, buy when it comes to enders game vs. enders shadow i liked enders shadow better, I felt the charater of bean was better developed. I like the Speaker, Xenocide, Children books most of all.
Posted by Bean Delphiki (Member # 1035) on :
I personally believe Enders Game is the best book ever written and Enders Shadow running close behind it. With that in mind I would say both characters are as equally intriguing to me but on different levels. I havent known Bean as an adult but I have known Ender as one. The Shadow books as a complete set present to me a better flow and much more fun read. The move quickly and I have read every single one on the very day I bought it. The Ender series was a bit more slow moving for me. Speaker for the Dead was a completely different book than Enders Game, yet phenomenal in its own right. Xenocide exhausted me but Children of the Mind left me unfulfilled. I would have loved to have had more books with Ender in his teenage years. I feel like I've missed out on a great part of his life and its for that reason I feel more intimate with Bean. As if I know him better. But if I'm forced to break it down I would agree with the post earlier which put Game in the top spot, Beans series second, and then the Speaker trilogy last. But if thats not an option, I have to side with Bean. Just because I know him better. :-)
Posted by Nania (Member # 7144) on :
quote: I wanted to know what happened to the descoladores. [Frown]
Nick
So Did I! Maybe he'll write another series of books for that. It left me unsatisfied, which wasn't good considering it is the end of the series. And what about the rest of the lives of little Peter and Val?? I want to read about it. Not imagine it. I want there to be an ending. Maybe its just the little girl inside of me wanting the "and they lived happily ever after." lol
I'm not much for politics, but I still love the Bean series. I guess that since I don't really pay much attention to real politics (so of course I wouldn't understand fictional politics, even if it is based off of real politics), it makes it more interesting for me. More surprises I suppose. Bean tries to do so much with such little time and it makes my heart go out to him. To spend so much time as a child then spike up suddenly, with Petra with him through it all. I'm such a romatic...
quote: in a way, Ender ends up as Bean, and Bean becomes Ender's beginning.
-Beanny
I never thought of it that way, made similar connections, but not quite that poetic. I like it.
I really have not reached a decision on which series I like more than the other. Both are brilliantly written and takes me to places I never would conceive of myself. When given the opportunity to choose, I choose not to choose at all. I love them both for what they are and only hope there is so much more to come. OSCAA - Orson Scott Card Addicts Anonymous... Posted by TheEnemiesGateIsDown (Member # 13633) on :
I prefer Bean. Something about his intellect mixed with the fact that he is human, even if he is a genetically enhanced human. He's very serious but can still laugh and tell jokes. He knows when to step in and when to watch. He knows how to manipulate, but doesn't just do it for fun. For example, he forces Graff's hand when it comes to the deadline and he traps Achilles but he doesn't use his power as commander of Rabbit army to belittle any soldier the way most commanders, even Ender, did. Nor did he take control in the final battle even when he was given the chance. His superior intellect is also fun to follow along with. One of my favorite lines from the Ender's Shadow book is "Now Graff would have to second guess every decision he made, wondering how much he was influenced by the fact that this kid really pissed him off" Also the dialogues with Bean are always great.
Posted by Szymon (Member # 7103) on :
That's what I call necromancy. 14 years later. Just Wow.
Posted by MarekAgain (Member # 13484) on :
quote:Originally posted by Nick:
quote: Children of the Mind brought the series to a satisfying finish.
Not for me. I wanted to know what happened to the descoladores.
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. Plus the military and political aspects of the Shadow series were more intersting than the Ender series' . . . philosiphy? Anyway that's me trying to cash in my 2 cents.
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