I've been thinking about this for a number of years. Over the last twelve years I have read nearly everything published by OSC. He has obviously been a prolific writer as evidenced by the the number of novels and short stories published over the last 3 decades. But during the last eight or nine years, from about the time Alvin Journeyman was published, I have noticed a change in his writing style, in his perceived purpose and his characters in comparison to his writings from the 70's, 80's and early 90's. Changes that, at least to me, don't seem to stem merely from the fact that as a human being, he too is continueall growing and changing, maturing.
Let me preface this by stating that I love OSC. I first started reading him when I was around 13 or 14, back when he reviewed computer games in Compute! magazine. The reviews were funny and insightful and memorable. To this day, I remember a game he reviewed where the player was a bubble or something that floated around and wasn't to touch the walls. His comment was that the game seemed to have been designed around the "floating bubble" effect that the designers had come up with and that there was no real plot or goal. Or something to that effect. That was about 16 years ago and I've never seen the article again. I stopped getting Compute!, never knowing he was an author of fiction.
Then, in 1992, I was in a grocery store looking in the book section. I was 18 and it was a small town on the Navajo Reservation, not much to do in the evenings and I didn't get but 3 TV channels. The nearest town with a book store was 3 hours away, so not a lot of variety. I saw Xenocide. Read the back and it seemed interesting, though I had no idea who the buggers were or who Jane or Andrew was. The cover said "from the award winning author of Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead", and somehow it didn't gel that this was the 3rd book in the series. But what got me was the "moral and ethical dilemmas" that were promised. So I gave it a shot.
I was amazed. It was like a revelation. I was in awe. I pieced together the back story fairly easily from his exposition. What amazed me was the fact that I didn't know what I wanted to happen. Stop the descolada or not. Destroy one group or another by either action. And the characters- I felt all of them. I questioned my own "religious experiences" when I read of Qing Jao. And the pain. The massacre of the pequeninos. The philosophy and theology. The fairness to all. And then, the end that somehow redeemed everything thing and everyone, the answered prayer of Ela and Quara to Os Venerados. Here was a book that was about everything important in my life and the universe, that was not afraid to plumb the depths of human suffering and pain and still promised redemption.
I was hooked. I read Ender's Game and was suprised at Ender's past, the pain he inflicted, the "cross" he bore, the unveiling at the end, and the final act of forgiveness from the Hive Queen. But all of that was nothing compared to his greatest book, Speaker for the Dead. No book was so filled with pain and anguish and characters I cared about and no ending has been so cathartic for me. It truly was a moment of supreme transformation and rebirth when Ender signed the treaty and sacrificed Human. No book has ever affected me quite like it.
I'm not going to bore you with book report after book report of OSC's works and their effects on me. Suffice it to say that time after time, from the Tales of Alvin Maker (at that time published only up to Prentice Alvin) to Songbird to the Worthing Saga to Treason to Pastwatch (which runs a close second to Speaker in my book)- all of them, including some of his short stories, carried certain themes with them. Themes of community and stories and redemption, of blood and massacre and sacrifice and forgiveness, of the man or woman willing to bear upon himself the pain and guilt and suffering of others or for their acts, for others, like Ender and Lanik and Ansett and Orem Scathips and the Tinker. Nafai's reasoning from Ships of Earth about his own guilt at the death of Gaballufix seemed to be the perfect expression of this very idea. The god bent over, eating the heart out of the monster slaughtering his people, while his back was being flayed by the claws of that monster. The incredible pain and suffering that he bore willingly to save others. These weren't merely stories, they are the myths most sacred and powerful to the human race from every culture.
At that time in my life, at the age I was, the circumstances I was in, OSC became a surrogate father to me who showed me so much about life and world. I am only a few years older than his son, so that wasn't to far off in terms of age. It seemed like everything he had written mirrored and reflected some aspect in my life. To this day, I purchase every book of his and continue to devour them as soon as they come out.
So when I say I love OSC, I mean it. Not simply because of the circumstances in my life, but because of the stories he created and the themes he touched and the characters, the flawed and pained and yet beautiful human flood that flowed from his pen.
And yet from the time of Alvin Journeyman, there seemed a shift. In that series each previous book ended with some major accomplishment and pain and redemption, climaxing in Prentice Alvin, where, it seemed Alvin had finally taken charge of his life and his power (remaking Arthur Stuart) and knew his purpose and HOW to build the crystal city. Anxiously I began to read it when I saw it was available on the internet (back when Hatrack was part of AOL).
And it was different. Maybe it was the intervening years. Prentice Alvin, I think, was in 88 and Journeyman was 96. And that had been filled with pain and betrayal and redemption and hope. Alvin Journeyman seemed out of sync, not necessarily in terms of internal consistancy, which seemed correct, but in style and flow. No longer did I feel like each book was a step for Alvin, a moving in the right direction toward the crystal city. Instead, it seemed like an episode. An important episode- Veriliy Cooper showed up, who is crucial - but an episode nonetheless. I could not point to the significant "work" that moved Alvin and the plot in the right direction. It was life-like in that stuff happened, it was important, but there seemed no overall arch, no real contribution to the major plotline, no sense of purpose. Alvin seemed no closer to the crystal city than he was at the beginning.
And, and this is hard to explain, it was missing something "gritty", some realism, some almost indefinable connection with life, dirty as it can be. Maybe it was the characters. In his past novels, the characters all were flawed. They were real and even terrible and yet somehow human and sympathetic. Angel, Patience, Ansett, Riktors Mikal, Mikal, Lanik, Hooch, Tecumsah, Armor of God, Reverend Thrower, Jason Worthing, Adam Worthing- in every book of his, the characters, as evil or good, as noble or vile as then were, they seemed real- real enough to empathize with and pity even as you hoped they failed and recognized their evil, as in the case of the people of Vigor church during the massacre of Tippycannoe or of Cavil Planter.
But, beginning with this book, that seemed to be lost. The main characters were either nearly perfect, as was Alvin, or had hangups that, I guess were real, but still seemed forced, as in the case of Peggy. And though Calvin was the bad guy and we got his point of view and self justifications, those too seemed forced. He gave speech after speech to himself about how righteous he was. Never was there any doubt, however, that he was the bad guy. There was nothing that made him sympathetic except the knowledge of how he had been in the earlier books.
From then on, as novel after novel came out. I noticed that realism missing. Yes, the characters were real in the sense that they were well drawn. But from then on, the moral ambiguity was gone. The idea that, if you ever knew a person, truly saw a person as they saw themselves, you couldn't help but love them. It was always clear who was good and bad. The good guys did good things and the bad guys bad. Micah Quill was only bad. Achilles was bad, despite Bean's attempt at "speaking" at the end of Shaddow Puppets. Nothing was shown to make them truly sympathetic. Yet we saw such characterization of Cavil Planter in Prentice Alvin, of Abner Doon, of Beauty in Hart's Hope, of the Shepherd in King's Meat, of Adam Worthing, the "son of Jason" that came and brought suffering to so many. And the good characters made speech after speech, to others or even to themselves, that, somehow, defended their goodness against the church of secularization or their arguments, some even anachronistically, as in the case of John Adams against Tom Jefferson in Heartfire.
The threat was now more subtle, the pain internal, the blood and sacrifice and violence and redemption muted. Not that all his works were violent. Remember Pageant Wagon, his best short story. The violence was minimal, but the threat of the loss of the pageant, the pain of this family, the redemption of Tegue and the family, was real. Or the failed colony of Stipock in the Worthing Saga- the death of Dilna's husband, her treachery, the forgiveness of her husband. The threats were real as was the sense that anything could and would happen to these people. OSC would let them suffer (and even put them through such hell, though not maliciously) and then teach us through it.
The "raw", "gritty" sense in the stories, where the main character could be an assasin, where a good man and father could have been adulterous, where people loved and lived hard, bled and cried, fitting into their milieu and moral universe with no judgement from ours, was gone. Or where there was such judgment, it was muted and shown only by consequences (and not obvious consequences).
Enchantment was one exception and I truly loved that book. But, even then, Baba Yaga was more comical than truly evil and fear inspiring like Beauty, though they were very similar characters. As have been Stone Tables and the Women of Genesis series. And the first half of Ender's Shadow, to a certain extent, with the pitiable and violent city of Rotterdam.
Why, I wondered, have things changed. Why has the style of his first 20 years suddenly changed over the last 10? I remember that during much of this time OSC also began to speak up much more publically (and openly) against the dreadful effects of secularization on society. The Clinton years did not sit well with him, as I recall article after article lambasting Clinton and his dishonest, oath-breaking term in office and visible society's seeming indifference. Movies and books also came under attack, from Amistad to Pleasantville. His stories, like Feed the Baby of Love, and novels and essays, even simple film reviews, seemed to become part of an arsenal devoted to counteracting these influences that have had undeniably bad effects on society, like no fault divorces. It seems to me that once those influences seemed to be accepted as normal, as evidenced by much of the indifference to Clinton as an a-moral person during that administration, OSC went on the offensive, trying to stop them with his essays, and -perhaps even subconsciously- using his books to rail against these things.
Or maybe not. But tt makes sense to me. And I still love him, I do. But sometimes I read his old books to get that "old-style" Card feel. When it seemed like it was life in all its beauty and gritty ugliness, where there was purpose and promise of redemption despite all of that.
I miss it.
No offense was meant and I apologize if any was taken.
Ian.
[ July 12, 2004, 03:06 PM: Message edited by: IanO ]
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Very well said Ian. I'm afraid that I don't have anything more substantial to contribute, but I didn't want your post to go unacknowledged. I've noticed exactly the same thing.
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
quote:The "raw", "gritty" sense in the stories, where the main character could be an assasin, where a good man and father could have been adulterous, where people loved and lived hard, bled and cried, fitting into their milieu and moral universe with no judgement from ours, was gone. Or where there was such judgment, it was muted and shown only by consequences (and not obvious consequences).
I don't believe this was the case. From whatever I read from those books you mentioned, those "gritty" characters came to understand their flaws and do something to change. If they didn't come to that realization, they were punished by those who did change. In Ender's Game for instance, those who disliked Ender were never shown as anything other than mean enemies. When they finally attacked, they were killed. Peter was an exception, but even in that case it was only when he turned his attention from violence to something more productive that he was not seen as evil. In fact, by turning away from the "gritty" he found his true calling. Ender was only a viable person when he got self-control and tried to redeem his past actions. OSC's books weren't about not judging, but rather about self-judgment, repentance, and improvement.
This did not always seem the case, but it was. In Speaker for the Dead, the bad father was still bad. The reason for the Speaking was not to show how good the man could be -- although there were times of redemption. It wasn't about not judging the man, for there was judgement for good or evil in the speaking. Rather, it was to show the family how evil they had become because of the influence of the father. They had to get rid of the total evil of the father by getting control of the whole man. Since they saw themselves in relation to the father, they had to find new relations to define themselves enough to have a choice to change. Of course, the Redemption of Christopher Columbus says it all by the title. I believe it represents our own need as a society to use our past to repent and change, rather than find excuses for misbehavior and anger.
His later books, I believe, are more about what happens when Repentance is rejected both by individuals and society. Perhaps OSC has come to believe that his hope he had in the past has become part of the past. So, in a way I do mostly agree with your assesment of his later and more recent writing style. Its in the relation of his former works that I disagree with you.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I agree with you, Ian. I have noticed the same thing and it bothers me. But, I have always felt that OSC is strict when it comes to portrayals of good and evil. That he has a clear idea in his stories of right vs. wrong... It just seems like the later books, the women of the Bible series and the Shadow series are more preachy, like that whole speech in Shadow Puppets that seems dedicated to trying to convince gay men to marry women... Or the speech in the book before that...
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
I only noticed this with the "Women of Genesis" series, but I thought it made sense, considering he was working with characters that weren't invented by him, but rather fleshed out. I thought that working within the walls that were laid down by the Bible and the religion of the characters, not to mention his own beliefs as a Mormon on top of it, would make it difficult to manuever.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I think it's pretty natural when you are young to like the young writings of a person over their mature writings.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
No... It's not exactly that...
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
Good comments, all.
First, I did not mean to imply that Card did not believe certain things were wrong, behaviors or actions. Clearly, some characters were good and some not.
And it is true that his most powerful stories are about people rejecting the evil in themselves, the struggle to subsume themselves or their base desires for others, to be civilized.
That is why so many of his novels contain characters who, though having performed terrible acts, even evil ones, their motivation was not an evil one. Ender was always a viable person. He did not simply become one when he took up the mantle of Speaker to atone. Throughout his life in battle school we saw his motivations, his desires, and it never was to hurt or kill. He wanted to be left alone. And in the end, he thought it was all a game.
I think of Mikal. The comments made by Esste to Nniv about how Mikal, though he had committed acts of terrible barbarity as he brought all the human universe under his control, he was not simply lusting after power for its own sake but because his goal was more noble. Thus, his soul was pure enough to still be moved by a songbird. I suppose a milder version of the "end justify the means." Perhaps "the motives mitigate the acts".
The point was that his characters, the ones who did such things, did believe such things and their self justifying arguments weren't straw men. They seemed real and, if you had their experiences, you could see how they felt that way because there would always be a part of you that could find that feeling deep inside you, though you might never act on it. They were realistic reasonings, not flimsy, as Calvin's self justifications always seem to be. One example. Calvin is thinking how Alvin, by constantly trying to serve and help others unselfishly is really showing ambition because Jesus said the greatest one would be the servent of all. I mean, that kind of reasoning is so ridiculous I can't take it seriously. That jerked me right out the story to roll my eyes.
Columbus wasn't redeemed because he had been bad and was now good.
quote: "So you would kill Columbus?"
Tagiri shuddered. "No...Columbus was no monster. We've all agreed to that, ever since the Tempoview showed the truth of him. His vices were the vices of his time and culture, but his virtues transcended the milieu of his life. He was a great man. I have no wish to undo the life of a great man."
He was redeemed because this great man, whose goals and intentions had always been to first glorify God, was able to adjust his thinking to include Native Americans as part of humanity. Not always an easy thing if you were raised with certain unquestioned beliefs. Yet he was one of those rare breeds that was able to stare truth in the face and accept it and, more importantly, act on it. He was redeemed because he and Diko and Hunapu created a world worth living in. He was like Noag, his will being so powerful that it was able to change the world.
My point wasn't that his characters were unashamedly "bad" and yet still the heroes. Rather, he showed good people tearing at each other and hurting each other, sometimes even terribly, as in the case of Dilna and her adultery with Wix, and yet somehow finding redemption.
Or he showed them willingly accepting the responsibility and guilt of acting for the perceived good all, as was the case of Ender, Nafai, or Lanik.
As for Marcao, I think you missed the point entirely. The family was not deformed by his evil. He was not evil. Remember Quim's statement after the speaking: "Makes you almost like the bastard."
The family was deformed because of Novinha's lies and deceptions both in regard to the descolada and the piggies (which we also understand and see was not evil, either) and her continued adultery in Marcao's very face.
Marcao worshipped her and loved her and was loyal to her. He even agreed to marry her knowing that she would have children by Libo. He secretly hoped that one day, she would come to feel loyalty and affection for him and accept him and his limitations. But, as Ender said, each child (and there were 6) was like a blow, a judgement that he was not worthy, which he did not deserve. He couldn't help his illness nor his intellectual dimness. And so he rebelled against her callous indifference to his feelings as she flaunted her infidelity. He never abused his children, physically. It was Novinha who felt his wrath.
Does that justify him and his abuse? No, not the least. But it shows he was not evil. He was not a bad man. He tried. But circumstances of his life and his marriage provided pressure that his moral weaknesses made difficult to fight. In the end, he is responsible for his decisions. But he is not evil.
Good people struggling to do good, to avoid bad, failing or even succeeding, sometimes at great cost to themselves and others, sometimes terrible costs as the 'good' they think they do is actually a mistake, or if the price of not acting is even worse, as was the case with the Shepherd in Kingsmeat.
Adam Worthing provides another example. A ruler who so easily was able to rule that he began to explore and test the limits of his power by indulging in every terrible act. Yet, what did one of the blue-eyed Worthing heirs do, when she "floated the stone"? She understood him, knew where he had been twisted in his mind. She was able to "fix" him.
Peter. Mikal. Riktors. Ansett. Patience (an assasin, no less). Palicroval. Rebekah. Isaac. Abraham. Sarah. All people who strove to do good, yet hurt those they loved. In varying degrees. Sarah was not Peter, torturing animals.
What was "The Hegemon?" Was it not an explanation of the the great and terrible deeds of man- using Peter as the supreme example. Explaining candidly his crimes, yet showing the intent.
quote: "If human beings are all monsters, why should I sacrifice anything for them?" "Because they are beautiful monsters..., And when they live in a network of peace and hope, when they trust the world and their deepest hungers are fulfilled, then within that system, that delicate web, there is joy. That is what we live for, to bind the monsters together, to murder their fear and give birth to their beauty."- Wyrms
quote: "Human was near them now, and he spoke a couplet from the Hegemon: "Sickness and healing are in every heart. Death and deliverance are in every hand."- Speaker
quote: "No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless. No one's life is nothing. Even the most evil of men and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous act that redeems them, at least a little, from their sins."- Speaker
His works were "gritty" because the people weren't perfect and preachy. They simply were, to be loved and hated, pitied and admired. They were no one dimensional Micah Quills. They were Cavil Planter, as bad a man as there was, yet still clearly human in the story he told himself that somehow justified his actions. Their speeches did not jump off the page as thinly veiled jabs or representations of contemporary society and it failures, as did John Adams internal monologue against Tom Jefferson and his secularism.
It was not satire or rhetoric that made OSC the author he is.
They transcended their world and ours because they should the human soul in all it light and shadow and showed the way to nobility and greatness and joy. They were mythic, universal, truer than truth and more beautiful than beauty (to quote Honore, in Heartfire).
That is what I miss. Because they seem to have diminished in this power since they seem to have been coopted in the fight against secularism.
Again, no offense is intended. Just honest discussion.
Ian
[ July 13, 2004, 12:11 PM: Message edited by: IanO ]
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
The Alvin Series isn't Sci-fi series either. So that is something to consider. I'm personally glad that things aren't as weird between he and Peggy as would would seem par for OSC's other work.
I think it is hard to write a couple where the partners are equivalent without there being devastating strife all the time to illustrate that. In the Alvin series it has kind of required them being far apart for much of the time.
I've had a hard time re-reading the Worthing Saga because it borrows so much of its dramatic impact for having anonymous babies dying all through it. I think the loss of that edge is an improvement in OSC's work.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I totally, totally agree with you, Ian... You state your views so clearly.. I felt the same way about Calvin and a few of his other characters from later books.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
Frankly, I've stopped sweating when I see a new OSC book is out. Ian has expressed my feelings very well. OSC's style has changed a lot, and it doesn't speak to me as much. In the earlier books, I cared more. These latter ones don't move me as deeply.
I've noticed the same thing happening with Stephen King's work. Some of his earlier work was thrilling and powerful. But most of his recent work has not moved me. The "Gunslinger" series is an exception, but even that is thinner now that the series is coming to an end.
I'd like to think it's not just me getting old. And recently, I discovered Robin Hobb's "Assassin" series to confirm that I can still feel that sense of enchantment.
I wonder if it's because OSC and King are in a certain phase of their lives where they find it necessary to spell things out. Me, I'd rather explore the Mystery.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
What I would like to do is find an older work of OSC's that I haven't yet read, and see how it effects me--that way I could eliminate the possibility that it was me that had changed.
The problem with that, of course, is that there aren't heaps of old OSC books out there waiting for me to discover them.
I am pretty good at not being effected by my nostalgia for books that I've loved in the past though. When I was in college I *loved* David Brin's The Postman, but when I reread it earlier this year I was distinctly underwhelmed by it; it felt much smaller and more simplistic than it had when I was younger. I'll have to reread some of OSC's classics that I haven't looked at in at least a decade, such as Song Master, Wyrms, and Hart's Hope, and see how they stack up agains his new stuff.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Good to see you again, Ian.
I've commented on this shift a couple of times myself. I'd like to throw out one of my favortie scenes from Speaker for the Dead. Ela does to meet Ender by the river to talk with him. Early on in the conversation, Ela, having in her mind betrayed her mother by wanting the secrets Novinha has kept made public, cries out that she is a terrible, ungrateful daughter. Ender replies with a more truthful interpretation, making Ela's self-condemnation look almost silly.
quote:She found herself laughing at her own self-condemnation. Childishly, she didn't want to laugh at herself.
Later on, Ela talks about Miro's reaction the night that Libo was killed:
quote:I woke up in the middle of the night because I could hear Miro throwing up and crying in the bathroom. I don't think anybogy else heard, but I didn't go to him because I didn't think he wanted anyone to hear him. Now, I think I should have gone, but I was afraid. There were such terrible things in my family.
And then, in response
quote: "I should have gone to him," Ela said again. "Yes," the Speaker said, "You should have." A stange thing happened then. The Speaker agreed with her that she had made a mistake that night, and she knew when he said the words that it was true, that his judgement was correct. And yet she felt strangely healed, as if simply speaking her mistake were enough to purge some of the pain from it. For the first time, then, she caught a glimpse of what the power of speaking might be. It wasn't a matter of confession, penance, and absolution, like the priests offered. It was something else entirely. Telling the story of who she was, and then realizing that she was no longer the same person. That she had made a mistake, and that the mistake had changed her, and now she would not make the mistake again because she had become someone else, someone less afraid, someone more compassionate.
This scene brought me close to tears the first time I read it. The revolutionary beauty in it is the major theme of this book. There were no bad people in Speaker, just people suffering from too much fear, too little compassion, and toiling under a great burden of guilt. The great badness that came from their actions came from these weaknesses and from their unwillingness to face the truth of situations. Weakness, and denial of weakness, or, as Ela's misplaced self-condemnation shows, a denial of their strength leads to the problems in the Ribiera family and in the Milagre family as a whole.
However, that they weren't bad was no excuse for them to go on as they had. Ela faces her failings, faces the truth, and is freed, not burdened down by it. She isn't that person anymore. She would do the right thing. Or, if she wouldn't, she knows why she wouldn't. She would know that it is not because she is bad, but because she is afraid or lacks the compassion or is too selfish to accept the responsibility. This is, to me, even more bittersweet because Ender, the prophet of these new ideas, still labors under the guilt of being the Xenocide.
I saw echoes of this in the redemptions of Alvin and Christopher Columbus. Their redemption didn't come through penance for their sins (Alvin for the self-centered use of the bugs, lying to them and leading them to their death, and Colombus for his classification of the natives as subhuman), but rather when they faced their sin and transformed into someone who wouldn't make that mistake again.
One of the other beautiful sentiments from Speaker is the idea that the judgement of another person or race or whatever as varelse (i.e. incomprehensible strangers that most likely should be destroyed if they are ever hostile) is that it says more about the one doing the judging than it does the thing being judged. In OSC's early writing, there were very few varelse, or, to cast it in a different light, there were few monsters. An interesting counterpoint to this was that there were also very few angels.
I completely agree with Ian. Alvin did become a lot less interesting when he stopped growing as a character. In the last books, he's pretty much the same person going out of it as he was coming into it. Even worse, to me, is when many of the characters in the Shadow series started becoming less characters and more billboards advertising The Right Way To Do Things. To me, these books have become clumsy and - in the case of Shadow Puppets at least - unfulfilling.
Coupled with a sampling of OSC's other writing, these books make me think that he has perhaps come to see the world of made up of good guys and bad guys (or angels and varelse) instead of just humans. In such a case, motives become greatly simplified and thus don't really need to be dwelt on or become overblown carictures of real, identifiable human motives. Instead, it's messages and actions that come to the fore.
Of course, all that is just my opinion of what could be going on. All I really know is that I have found OSC's later works to be less enjoyable and that the reasons that I suggest are the reasons that I see for this. I could be completely wrong. I hope that I will enjoy his next books much more.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
Ender's Game still does it for me, as do the rest of the early Ender novels. And Hart's Hope is amazing. But the Alvin novels were never quite as enchanting for some reason.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
It would be interesting to see, in a comparison between the earlier and later books, how often and how abrupt were the changes in the characters. I remember one of the things I liked so much about Ender's Shadow is how, if you looked closely, you could see Bean forming emotional attachments and growing as a person beyond the isolated street kid that he was, even while denying that he had any emotions. However, the Bean/Petra thing felt as forced and inauthentic as the Anakin/Amidala relationship from Attack of the Clones.
[ July 13, 2004, 02:30 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
I take my previous comment back. The first Alvin novel was wonderful. But when he started becoming Superman (I think somewhere in Prentice Alvin), I started losing interest.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote: that whole speech in Shadow Puppets that seems dedicated to trying to convince gay men to marry women
I have heard a lot of people complain about the shadow series in this way. I personally never felt that way reading them. I wonder if it is because his "preachings" fit so well inside my world-view. I didn't even notice them.
Contrast this to the preachings of Hienlien in "Friday" or "Stranger in a Stange Land". Those preachings rip me out of the story, probably because they are completely at odds with my beliefs.
quote: not flimsy, as Calvin's self justifications always seem to be. One example. Calvin is thinking how Alvin, by constantly trying to serve and help others unselfishly is really showing ambition because Jesus said the greatest one would be the servent of all. I mean, that kind of reasoning is so ridiculous I can't take it seriously. That jerked me right out the story to roll my eyes.
Flimsy? Yes. Believable? Unfortunately, yes. There really are people who justify themselves like that. It's sad, but it's there.
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
Noemon,
One early work you might check out is The Worthing Chronicle, if you can find it. It is much rougher around the edges, compared to the more polished (but just as beautiful) Worthing Saga. But it contains a few stories that you could test your reaction out on. Also, Capitol and Maps in a Mirror. It is hard if you've read most of his books many times to gauge your reaction without one you haven't.
MrSquicky,
That is a perfect example of its power. Another that stands out in my mind is when Valentine meets and speaks to Olhado in Xenocide and discovers what he is- not a scientist- but a father, in imitation of Ender.
quote: I saw what Andrew did in our family. I saw that he came in and listened and watched and understood who we were, each individual one of us. He tried to discover our need and then supply it. He took responsibility for other people and it didn't seem to matter to him how much it cost him. And in the end, while he could never make the Ribeira family normal, he gave us peace and pride and identity. Stability. He married Mother and was kind to her. He loved us all. He was always there when we wanted him, and seemed unhurt by it when we didn't. He was firm with us about expecting civilized behavior, but never indulged his whims at our expense. And I thought: This is so much more important than science. Or politics, either. Or any particular profession or accomplishment or thing you can make. I thought: If I could just make a good family, if I could just learn to be to other children, their whole lives, what Andrew was, coming so late into ours, then that would mean more in the long run, it would be a finer accomplishment than anything I could ever do with my mind or my hands...when we're alone, I call him Papa, and he calls me Son.
That brings tears to my eyes everytime.
The goodness and beauty and love in the midst of turmoil and pain- the proof that here is something worth saving. As Graff said to Ender:
quote: I may have used Valentine and you may hate me for it, Ender, but keep this in mind -- it only works because what's between you, that's real, that's what matters. Billions of those connections between human beings. That's what you're fighting to keep alive.
And not just in the Ender series. Red Prophet is filled with scenes like that, including the heart breaking Massacre of Tippycannoe. Talewapper and Tecumseh and their trip out of Eight Faced Mound. Alvin and Tecumseh's final trip after the battle and Alvins return home. I felt spent and empty. I had lived a life like no other. Prentice Alvin was the same for me, with the added exhiliration that Alvin finally had control of his power and knew what the crystal city was to be and how (in terms of people) it should be made.
And Treason. Lanik and the scream of death he continues to endure. His reuniting with Laranna (?) and their finding a place among the people of ?, living simply and finding such joy.
Or Lovelock. Wyrms. Jason. Folk of the Fringe. Homecoming.
All of it. All of them.
The cathartic beauty seems to have been lost.
Now, in fairness to OSC here are a few reasons why they don't resonate as much.
1) We are older. I just turned 30. I am not the same person I was when I was 18.
2) He is older and doesn't want to keep telling the same story so he is training himself to write new kinds of stories.
3) We know his views on contemporary culture. We no longer have to guess. So when, in his novels, he says something that echoes a statement he made in an essay, we may inadvertantly pull in the rest of the essay in our mind and think, "there he goes, on his hobby horse again."
All of those are no doubt true.
But I can't help but think, when I look at his Women of Genesis series (which, because of the setting is able to avoid showing any modern cultural problems and is able to focus on showing the people as ramen) he still has the power to write books like he used to.
But the settings of his Alvin Maker books and the Bean series lend itself to veiled criticisms of contemporary society. It has become part polemic and less powerful with me.
Ian
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
That's the problem Ian--I wouldn't have any trouble finding a copy of The Worthing Saga, Capitol, or Maps in a Mirror, because all of them are sitting on one of the bookshelves in my study. When I read an author I tend to be pretty thorough about it. I really won't have a lot of choices in terms of reading an old OSC story for the first time unless he decides to publish some old, previously un-collected short stories that somehow didn't make it into Maps in a Mirror.
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
Jenny,
I suppose you could think he was becoming superman in Prentice Alvin. I disagree it was then, though. I think that he, with great difficult finally began to use his power to its potential, climaxing in Arthur Stuart's change.
It wasn't until Journeyman, IMO, that he became unrealistically and unneccesarily powerful, like when he pushed the stool through the bars of the jail for Peggy. He began coasting through life, led here or there, searching (and not finding out much- just being on trial alot)- casually powerful (like he was with Jim Bowie) and never in danger (except for the aligator attack which didn't excite too much fear in me). Always almost perfect, pushing people in an almost condescending manner (as he did Arthur Stuart in "The Grinning Man" to make the canoe.)
So while I put the change as being later, Alvin irritates me for the same reason.
mr_porteiro_head,
I don't disagree with his world-view. Yet noticed it.
Maybe Calvin's reasoning *is* realistic though flimsy. But it just didn't fit. Or rather, I kept thinking, 'what a whinny baby!', like when he got mad when Alvin mentioned he had met Napoleon first. There seems to be nothing redeeming to Calvin.
Even when we view things from his POV, I don't walk away thinking that I can understand how he feels. I don't feel any empathy. I really don't. He is decidedly one dimensional. We are told about his love and hate, admiration and despising for Alvin, yet we are only shown the hate and despising. Exposition versus showing. He is one-dimensional.
And a weeny.
Ian
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
What about the Worthing Chronicle? It had a few good ones (including an interesting journal-like entry concerning the fight between Link and ? over his building a house for himself).
If so, then you're in the same boat I'm in.
But how can we complain. Aside from King, what author his put out such a large number of consistantly good (nay, even great) novels. Most people have to make do with 1,2 maybe 5 to 10 if they are lucky of their favorite author.
Thus, we are the jackels gnawing at OSC's bones, seeking a little more sustenance.
Ian
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
So Ian, you don't feel any curiosity as to how Alvin is actually going to die? Or have you missed that foreshadowing? I'm pretty sure it won't involve being injected with molten adamantium caged underwater or nothing.
quote: In OSC's early writing, there were very few varelse, or, to cast it in a different light, there were few monsters. An interesting counterpoint to this was that there were also very few angels.
Have you read Homecoming? I didn't like the allegory of the Angels and Devils first time I got to book V. But when I returned to it a few years later I found it really vibrant.
I'm sorry for you if you see hobby horses all through his work. If it were me, I'd stop reading the essays so I could enjoy the fiction.
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
Yeah, its forshadowed in the book. And I know LDS history enough to know how Alvin will die and, unfortunately, the likely outcome of Navoo- I mean the crystal city- with its tabernacle .
I guess that's the real downside to basing your book, however losely, on a real person.
I want to see the actual Crystal City that Alvin and the prophet saw, not just some thing at the end saying that he failed, or that it lives on or is up to us, etc.
I want it to end like Pastwatch or like Wyrms. You don't see the new perfect world created, really. But you are free to imagine it does exist. The reality doesn't explode the myth.
I want to see Alvin make the crystal city. Not just start to build it and then have it be destroyed and everyone have to trek west to Utah to start over.
As for the essays. Yeah, I could do stop- if I wasn't compulsive. Like that's going to happen.
Ian
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
I think part of Card's struggle right now is the fact that he has been doing the same thing for nearly thirty years. He's obligated to finish series and contracts that he was first excited about in the eighties. It's hard to maintain that level of excitement for such a long period of time.
Look what happened when he took a break from the series, though, and wrote a new kind of novel — you get Enchantment, possibly his greatest work of all time. He's still got it. I believe he just needs a shift in his career to keep himself fascinated by his work the way he was when all these ideas first germinated.
So wish him luck in his movie ventures, and if you're in LA or Greensboro, go to his plays. He's still got a lot more aw350m3 left in him, if you give him the chance.
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
There's no question about that, Geoff. Enchantment was incredible. After Journeyman (and Treasure Box and Homebody, which, while *fun*, weren't truly profound) Enchantment seemed like a bolt of lightning and hearkening back to "early Card".
More than anything, I loved the relationship between Katerina and Ivan. So beautifully done. I just reread it last weekend. Amazing. (Though I could have wished Baba Yaga had been less comical and more sinister, as Beauty was, since they were basically the same person with the same back type of background, as far as I could tell. Like all her scenes with Bear, especially the eye extracting part and the casual, even humerous way, she spoke to the merchant she was extracting the eye from. A minor quibble. I loved seeing how Katerina came to love Ivan. That scene where it was finally "declared" is THE highpoint in the book, for me.)
His Women of Genesis series, however, shows the power he had is still there. Rebekah was so moving and sad and yet filled with hope. I am anxiously waiting for Rachel and LEah to arrive at my bookstore. The first chapter was so sad and touching. I've always felt partial to Leah, the "despised" daughter, and from the little I saw, he portrays that beautifully.
So never think I am speaking harshly of your Dad. I named my son Connor *Scott* after him, after all. He truly has been like a father to me.
I look forward to reading more of his books, especially those for which he has real excitement, if that is, indeed, the reason. I guess it just that I could do with less rhetoric (and self justification) from the characters in the Alvin and Bean series.
Ian
[ July 13, 2004, 05:39 PM: Message edited by: IanO ]
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Hrmph. Sometimes folks try to draw parallels between Joseph Smith's life and Alvin, and it's just bizarre the amount of twisting it takes. And Alvin doesn't call it a tabernacle, IIRC. But I think the reaction people have had to that word is not accidental. I for one am eager for him to finish the series.
I agree that Enchanted is an awesome book. I haven't read a lot of the earlier standalone novels, so I don't know as I can compare.
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
WHAT PLAYS IN L.A.? I think I remember hearing about only one, and that was after it was over.
Maybe someone close to him -- y'know, like a family member -- could give us an earlier heads-up. *smile*
--Pop
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I think that Geoff makes a good point. I am really surprised that OSC is finishing the Alvin series. I was sure he had abandoned it for good. How is he obligated to finish the series? Is it a legal obligation? Or does he feel he "owes" it to his readers?
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I have to be honest, I did once post a question about how Card's feelings on Clinton harmonized with his moral inclusiveness in Speaker for the Dead. But the piggies were aliens, being observed by "objective" scientists. Clinton was the leader of the free world.
We get a lot of "my country, right or wrong, when wrong to be put right" nowadays. Where were these slogans during the Clinton years? It was "My party, right or wrong, period". Card was and is a democrat, as far as I know.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote: WHAT PLAYS IN L.A.? I think I remember hearing about only one, and that was after it was over.
Maybe someone close to him -- y'know, like a family member -- could give us an earlier heads-up. *smile*
--Pop
WHAT HE SAID!!!
Posted by Cactus Jack (Member # 2671) on :
Can I third Moose and Rivka?
Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
Very interesting thread. I don't really have anything more to contribute except to remind myself I really must re-read Enchantment.
I like this kind of discussion. Keep it up!
Oh, and forget plays in LA. OSC plays in Australia... that's the direction of the future! Please?
Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :
rat
quote:Look what happened when he took a break from the series, though, and wrote a new kind of novel — you get Enchantment, possibly his greatest work of all time. He's still got it. I believe he just needs a shift in his career to keep himself fascinated by his work the way he was when all these ideas first germinated.
Very few artists who attain financial success and a solid fanbase "still got it". Any student of history knows that.
his "fascination" with movies smacks of Ebert.
fallow
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
pooka, the Alvin Series has been consciously, from the start, a fantasy adaptation of the life and times of Joseph Smith. While not a one-to-one mapping of the path, he has never pretended otherwise, in interviews and the like.
There's no "twisting" needed. OSC admits it as much.
-Bok
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Yeah Ian, we're in the same boat--and you're right, it's not a bad boat to be in really.
For a long time, I've said that I hope that OSC is phenomenally successful in movies, for a number of reasons. I'd love to see movies that had the same inspired, brilliant view into what it means to be human that OSC has historically brought to his fiction, of course, but I'd also prefer that he not be financially obligated to produce any kind of art that he isn't actively interested in producing. I've talked about this at length in other threads, but I'm sure that those are old enough to have been deleted by now.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Or does he feel he "owes" it to his readers?
Why the quotes?
I would think that beginning a series implies an agreement to end the series in a satisfactory manner, especially a series clearly intended to have an ending. To let it drop cold when interest and fan reaction is still high would be... well, "unfair" sounds whiny and "a breach of contract" isn't technically accurate, but both contain the right flavor.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Bok- Card already did a life of Joseph Smith in Saints . It no more strictly parallels the life of Smith than the History of America in it strictly parallels American History. So if you can accept things like Napoleon setting foot on the continent and Washington being executed, never mind all the political changes and the magic-- that is the degree of difference in the life stories.
Alvin may wind up heading a religious movement, but it won't be with his intent. If anything could be more different from the life of Smith, I don't know what is. Though I'm sure they will both die as a result of the world not being ready for what they have to give it.
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
Pooka,
Who do you think OSC is thanking in the forward to Red Prophet?
quote:Thanks to my great-great-grandfather Joseph for the stories behind the story in this book.
quote:If you base a character on a real person, as I did in basing some of Alvin's life on incidents from the life of Joseph Smith, or even base a story point for point on a historical source, as I did in basing the plot of the Homecoming series on the first portion of the Book of Mormon, as long as you make drastic changes you are perfectly safe - drastic enough changes make it so the reader does not expect to be getting the facts straight.
or
quote:Likewise, even though I depart widely from Joseph Smith's life in the Alvin Maker stories, I nevertheless try to remain true to his personality and character as I have come to understand him through research - I don't ever have Alvin do anything that is more morally questionable than things Joseph Smith actually did, and insofar as possible, I make his motives gibe with Joseph Smith's motives.
[ July 14, 2004, 12:08 PM: Message edited by: IanO ]
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
quote: To let it drop cold when interest and fan reaction is still high would be... well, "unfair" sounds whiny and "a breach of contract" isn't technically accurate, but both contain the right flavor.
I have no problem using the term "breach of contract". If you buy a book that clearly states that it is the beginning of a series, then you are making an investment in the future books as well as the current one. If the first book does NOT state that it's part of a series, but you learn it at the end, then I believe the reader is "owed" the rest of the story, or at least the ability to purchase it if they choose.
Of course, if an author had a personal situation in their life and they couldn't hold up to their end, no one's going to crucify them, as there really is nothing legal binding them to the reader. But, unless it's a catastrophic thing, it would be extremely unethical not to finish what they started.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Ian, if I really feel like discussing it I'll start a thread sometime. There are a lot of non-LDS folk (I don't know where you fall) who assume the word "parallel" applies where it really doesn't. Red Prophet most particularly didn't have a lot to do with any events I am aware of in the life of Joseph Smith.
(Edit: I'll cool down and clarify-- I know Bok is not LDS. Earlier on the other board Dag, who is also not LDS, drew a similar assumption about Alvin being a pretty good represenation of Joseph Smith. So my replies may have sounded odd to you. A prior discussion )
PSI...True it says "Tales of Alvin Maker III" but it doesn't say III of VII. I guess the fact that he has not yet assumed the surname "Maker" does give a hint. I thought the series was done at III. Wasn't there a longish pause at that point?
[ July 14, 2004, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: pooka ]
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
To get off the subject a tad. I pesonally believe that the need for authors to write a "series" has wounded Science Fiction as literature. The authors are stuck finishing what they started (usually taking them five to ten years), and it effects the amount of creative output on other projects.
Now, if they are really, really, interested in pursuing the story or going beyond the first book that is fine. At least they are doing it because they have a person interest. However, too often it is because the author either isn't that good of a writer creatively or because a contract insists that is what they do.
Another problem is it locks out a new fanbase. In order to get involved with an author they might have to read the first in a series. Recognizing the need for a vested interest in the whole corpus of the books in order to finish the story, they are turned off by what might have been a casual interest. Another problem, as this place has shown even by those already fans, is that the energy of long multi-volume narratives often becomes repetitive, preachy, and/or bogged down. Because a person might recognize how good an author was to start out with, they will be reluctant to read yet another series that might do the same damage regardless of the initial positives. I don't know how many books and authors I have turned down because of the size of the first or the amount of the rest of a series. This isn't laziness (as I read a lot) as much as conservation.
This series devotion in science fiction has become so prevailant that many great talents are wasted when they could be going other directions. It also places them squarely in the hands of a small "fanbase" rather than more open to new readers. It has shrunk the size of the audience, and stymied the creative growth of the genre. Sadly, the overblown use of shared universe series (such as Star Trek and Star Wars) even by seasoned authors has further brought the legitimacy of the genere into more disrepute and accusations of immaturity (much less further elitised the readership).
My suggestion is simple. Reinvigorate the Science Fiction and even Fantasy genre by producing a series of no more than three books. Stick with single and distinct stories more often. Let readers, espcially of new generations, be allowed easily into the currently over-serialized world. If you have to, do like the current mystery writers who use the same characters, but never the exact same case.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I don't think that being in a series makes a book good or bad anymore than whether the author has three names versus two. It's a lot like the argument of whether a movie is good or bad due to it being a sequel. I never saw "If these walls could talk II" though. Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
Pooka,
I certainly don't mean to imply that every event in Alvin's life parallels some event in Joseph Smith's life (I'm not LDS, by the way, but have studied LDS theology and history quite extensively. Though it has been a while.).
But OSC has stated that he used JS life as the source of these stories. That, to me, suggested that he followed the loose framework of JS life, having many events in Alvin's life parallel those. Not that everything is the same, but the commanalities, the inspiration is clear.
Just a few:
Tenska-Tawa 3 time visit to Alvin. The description (including the phsyical details) of this greatly parallels that of Moroni's 3 in one night visit to JS (though JS was much older than Alvin.)
Alvin's problem with his leg as a boy. I understand something similar happened to JS.
Alvin is a junior. So was JS.
Alvin was JS older brother who died (at birth?)
Alvin's relationship with his much older brother, Measure, parallels that of JS with Hyrum.
Alvin made a golden plow which first, in the regard to the trial of Alvin in Hatrack, 3 witness view (Verily-Oliver, the judge, Marty Laws), and later 8 witnesses. Just like the BoM's testimonies of the witnesses.
Verily Cooper clear parallels Oliver Cowdry. Even to the time that Verily (in Crystal City) leaves Alvin for a time, as did Oliver Cowdry, and then comes back to help with the Golden plow (the first real proper use of it as a plow).
Alvin is constantly being acused of things, all designed to get the plow away from him, just like JS and the BoM. Crystal City has the whole ownership of the plow trial comming up again, even though it had been settled.
Eight faced mound looks to be about the same place as Cummorah Hill, where JS found the plates.
the location of the Crystal City is about where Navoo would have been.
the Crystal City will have a Tabernacle, just like Navoo's temple
Alvin is a wrestler, like JS was known for.
Vilate Franker's knack is to know where people will die. She says Alvin will die in Carthage City, like JS.
Peggy sees Alvin dying under a hail of bullets, through her torch knack. Like JS.
Yeah, they're not exact. They are parallels, not it the exact sense of the same thing happening to both. But clearly events of JS life are being used as the basis for many of the most important events in Alvin's life. I'm guessing we agree on that. Perhaps merely it was the word "parallel" and what you thought I may have meant by it. I agree that not everything that happened to JS will happen to Alvin, and vice-versa.
But, especially with his death forshadowed so clearly in the same manner that JS died, I believe they will happen in nearly exactly the same way.
Ian
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
quote: PSI...True it says "Tales of Alvin Maker III" but it doesn't say III of VII. I guess the fact that he has not yet assumed the surname "Maker" does give a hint. I thought the series was done at III. Wasn't there a longish pause at that point?
I wasn't really applying that specifically to OSC or the "Alvin Maker" books. I guess, if an author writes several books in a series and each forms a good story that stands alone, and you aren't promised more books, then an author shouldn't be forced to "finish" a series. But in a case like this, where we still have an important goal that we've been waiting for since book one (Crystal City) it would be poor writing for an author to leave you with that "promise" unfulfilled.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
pooka, my feeling is pretty similar to Ian's. There are major facets of the Alvin story that match up with incidents in JS's life; how OSC gets from point to point may wildly differ. This is not unexpected, as to follow JS's life path slavishly would be a) redundant, and b) likely quite boring to people outside of LDS who are familiar with the likenesses (I almost wrote parallels, but decided that it would only confuse things since you are using a different meaning than I for parallel, it seems).
-Bok
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Yeah, I guess we have different definitions of parallel.
Posted by UTAH (Member # 5032) on :
Isn't the point about the change in "excitement" or tone, in OSC's books? Not the parallels to Joseph Smith. I wish every book I read could make me feel the way I did after reading Ender's Game. There will be a book that OSC writes that has that level of "WOW", just give him a new subject. I do believe that a series can go on too long. Look at Rbt. Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I had to labor through #10, hoping for some redeeming quality as I read. Then there are some series where the 2nd or 3rd book is better than the first (Susan Cooper's Greenwitch). I have great faith that OSC will again "WOW" me, but for now I have to go start reading Rachel & Leah. . . Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote: [Quote]Or does he feel he "owes" it to his readers?[\quote] Why the quotes?
I would think that beginning a series implies an agreement to end the series in a satisfactory manner, especially a series clearly intended to have an ending. To let it drop cold when interest and fan reaction is still high would be... well, "unfair" sounds whiny and "a breach of contract" isn't technically accurate, but both contain the right flavor.
Because I am a reader, and my favorite stuff of his has been the stand-alone novels (Enchantment, Pastwatch, etc.). For the longest time, I thought that the Alvin series was dead in the water. While I have enjoyed the Alvin books written since them, I think I would have preferred non-series books from him.
Also, what Occasional said.
Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
I was trying to flounder through an articulation of my feelings on this very subject over in the other thread, and I remembered glancing at this one. So I finally read the whole darned thing.
Thanks for taking the time to write all that out Ian. What you say makes a whole lot of sense. I have to admit that some of Card's early stuff (Hart's Hope for example) is a little too "rough" for me. For these same reasons I've found myself really enjoying the rest of the Shadow series for different reasons than I have for thinking that Speaker for the Dead is the most amazing work he's ever completed. I guess it's just a different kind of enjoyment. It all still appeals to me. The readability of his work, the likeability of his characters...
But it has changed. You're right. Posted by Mean Old Frisco (Member # 6666) on :
Very well put, Ian. Geoff has a point, too. I hope that when he finishes the Alvin series and the Shadow series, he finds something he can get excited about.
It's very, very hard to write with the "well, let's get it over with" mindset. And that's how Crystal City felt. And as much as I love Lovelock (and Kathy), I'd rather he work on something he wants rather than plug through Rasputin.
Same goes for the Game/Shadow link book.
I want to be moved again.
Posted by gravity (Member # 1564) on :
I don't like Card's work so much anymore. A big part of that is that he has become a lot more preachy in his political and religious beliefs, and I dislike (or to be honest, I *hate*) many (not all) of those beliefs. I am ambivalent on changes in his writing style, it's slicker and cleaner now, but I liked the clipped/stripped-down style of Ender's Game, too.
[ July 15, 2004, 08:15 AM: Message edited by: gravity ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Years ago, I wrote Card BEGGING him not to feel obliged to finish the Alvin Maker books the way he planned. Why?
Because the first three Alvin books are among my favorite books of all time. Between Prentice Alvin and Alvin Journeyman. though, something happened. Not only did the powerful authorial voice change dramatically (as did the narrator), but Alvin became -- almost overnight -- smug, arrogant, and unlikeable. We started seeing him being "good" more and more often because the writer TOLD us he was good, or pitted him against obvious evil, but not making the subtle but morally powerful choices he had made in his youth; we had no reason to believe that he was as good a man as we were being told, in the same way that the Shadow books give us no reason to believe that Bean is a genius beyond the fact that everyone keeps saying it.
At the time, I felt that this was because Card had written Journeyman out of a sense of obligation, and consequently needed to track closer to the story of Joseph Smith to "complete" the allegory. I wrote him -- and never did get a reply, sadly, which was a rarity in those days -- to ask that he change his mind and NOT go back to the well so often.
There are interesting potential stories in Alvin's universe. The rise of Napoleon, the fight against slavery, the growth of a noble secular state -- all these things make a fine backdrop for the story of a man working to show people how to achieve their potential and grow to glory. But we'd lost that sense of grandeur; we were going step by step through a diagrammed plot, I felt, intended to hit the allegorical points Card wanted to raise.
So I asked him to reconsider the whole allegory thing. Alvin, as he's written him, is nothing like Joseph Smith. He doesn't need to live Joseph Smith's life, and his choices feel forced when Card shoehorns him into that mold.
I don't always object to allegory; The Worthing Chronicle is perfectly good, and well-written. But I think Card is writing the remaining Alvin books for the wrong reasons, and it was only in the latest one (and brief moments in the last few, particularly with Calvin and Balzac) that I think he managed to wriggle free of his obligations a bit.
[ July 15, 2004, 05:28 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
That's exactly it Tom (congrats, btw).
As unlikeable (and unsympathetic) as Calvin was, his adventures with Napoleon or with Balzac were much more interesting then Alvin.
Now, I don't know that it is necessarily because of slavish adherence to the source material. The source material was also used in the first three, especially the visit of Tenska-Tawa to Alvin in the night. But it was very powerful all the same. Homecoming, to me, was great, too, despite there being source material to keep in mind (and parallel).
The Shadow books, as much as I like them, suffer from the same symptons, without any source material to adhere to (other than the setting and universe they find themselves in). I just read Ender's Shadow and have to say that it WAS really was great, though there were no great cathartic moments.
But I can't tell if it is simply because Bean is such a cold and intellectual person, or for any other reason. His entire "journey" to get in touch with his feelings was missing something. There were one or two moments, like when he included Nikolai in Ender's army. After all his reasoning, the bottom line was he needed a friend. That resonated. But there weren't a lot of moments like that. It was mainly Bean being so far above everyone else that his connections to people were rare or very tenuous.
I really think it is the characters. They have become less real, less themselves and more tools or representations, giving speeches right and left. Theresa's little speech to Bean when they first met is one example. I love the Theresa (and John-Paul) of "Teachers Pest". And she was here, too. And her sentiments were valid and even a necessary explanation, given what she and John-Paul gave up for all their children. I just don't know that it should have been as long a conversation, or should have been stated, rather than showed, somehow.
The good guys have steadily become more good and pure in every reaction and motive, like Alvin's response to the gator trying to kill him in Crystal City. It wasn't just a brief statement of pity for the creature. It was hammered (or seemed to me anyway) again and again how "Alvin'd be blamed if he let this gator die who wouldn't a bothered nobody if the Unmaker hadn't a show'd up", as if the gator would have left him alone if he hadn't his knack and that it just wanted to be left alone and be a vegetarian.
Even a gay scientist, Anton, in Shaddow Puppets up and decides to marry and have children. Out of the blue, or so it seemed, since we get no explanation of the reasoning that led to that.
The same situation was handled far more deftly and realistically (and beautifully) with Zdorab in Ships of Earth. Now, not quite the same situation (Zdorab sort of had to marry Shedemai to avoid being cut off from the small community as a "child"), but the point is, we saw how Zdorab reached his conclusions, we saw his reasons for "marrying" Shedemai, we saw how his real non-sexual love for her and desire to make her happy (and give her the joy of children) led to his decision, his admittedly difficult decision (and act) to have children. (I chuckle just remembering this line in the book: "He remembered something that an old lover of his had once said—that when it came down to it, human males could mate with any creature that held still long enough and didn't bite very hard.")
That was believable and filled me with such love and respect and - just made me glad to know Zdorab, whatever he had decided. He was a good man.
Conversely, Dr. Anton's decision came out of the blue. When last we saw Anton, he was being interviewed by Carlotta about the key. The next time we see him, he is ebulent with joy at having found to secret of happiness- binding yourself in the web of life by marrying and having children, despite a persons personal predilections. Now, I DO BELIEVE THAT. I DO ABSOLUTELY. But it was so out of the blue- so unprepared for and with no indication whatsoever that this was coming at all- that it was clearly simply a bolstering argument to what Theresa had already told Bean. "See, everyone has discovered this truth! Let's all jump on the bandwagon. You too Bean!" It smacked of pure authorial manipulation to prove a point and force been into the next plot point of having kids.
It did not ring true. Either Anton is a main (or semi-main) character, so we should be privy to his decision making process that leads to this decision (like Zdorab), or his is minor character at best and so should not be so blantantly (and jarringly) used to make a point.
I really think it is that the characters have become part of an arsenal against the perceived secularization of the culture. In the process, they have lost their complex humanity.
But I can't wait to get Rachel and Leah. I hope my order has arrived. Because those books still move me.
And I am interested to see what his next stand-alone novel is like. To see if excitement about a new project will bring new life to his novels.
Because he is, in my opinion, probably the greatest writer I have ever read. Period. He has shown and taught me more, has entertained and moved and challenged me more than any other author ever has. He is the most ethical of writers, and there was a reason he was the one to write "Character and Viewpoint." It's what he does best.
Ian
[ July 15, 2004, 03:02 PM: Message edited by: IanO ]
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Prentice was 1989. Journeyman was 1995. So for starters you are looking at a six year gap. I wonder too if Card's idealism didn't take a battering when his party actually gained power, but little changed. Not that I am admitting that the books are deeply flawed or anything.
I am also not familiar with the chronology of events in his personal life that may have consumed some of his edge. I am willing to concede that the edge is lessened, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Well, I see Lost Boys came in that gap. I just feel like some of these threads fail to acknowledge that this is a person we are talking about and not a prized racehorse. I guess I feel strongly enough about this to copy it to the other thread.
(And to add to this thread) I don't want to delve into the personal life of OSC, about when he dropped out of grad school etc. ad nauseum I see every book as a gift, as the hatrack forum is itself a gift.
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
I agree, pooka.
He has produced enough amazing literature that if he never writes another thing, the world still will have been immeasurably enriched.
He has done REPEATEDLY what some authors only manage to do only once or twice. That is a fact.
Never believe I think otherwise.
Mr. Card, I salute you.
Ian
Posted by JemmyGrove (Member # 6707) on :
Ian, I just want to voice my agreement. Your comments about his earlier work say so articulately how I feel about them and why I was so drawn to them.
I still really enjoy nearly everything he writes -- he still has such a human touch compared with some of the other reading I've done recently (that may speak more about my reading habits than his writing though). But I was CHANGED by Speaker for the Dead and The Worthing Saga and the earlier Alvin Maker books.
Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
quote:I wonder too if Card's idealism didn't take a battering when his party actually gained power, but little changed.
I am confused as "gaining power" could mean any number of things. Considering that Card is a conservative Democrat, his party actually lost power. Come to think of it, I wonder if they ever had power.
I wanted to add one more edit comment. It seems to me through reading this board that, disenchanted comments aside, OSC continues to gain fans through both his older and newer works.
[ July 15, 2004, 11:53 PM: Message edited by: Occasional ]
Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :
Hi,
nice to meet you.
fallow
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Occasional, I was referring to the 1992 and 1996 elections.
I also think that there is a lot of emotion tied up in longing and seeking. In reference to the Alvin Maker books, it's definitely there more in the earlier books. Adventure, True love, knowledge etc. I think Alvin is still longing and seeking, it's just not for the same level as I may have personal experience with, but I still find it interesting.
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
I found this essay by OSC enthusiast Michael Collings somewhat relavent to this discussion. In many ways, the observed disappearance of those thematic elements Collings talks about in this essay (and their vivid, raw presentation) in OSC's later works is perhaps partially responsible for the perceived loss of cathartic and emotional power.
Ian
Posted by Aurora (Member # 6751) on :
Ian, you've managed to say thoroughly and eloquently something that's been in my mind for several years. I found Card when I was thirteen - starting with Homebody, as a matter of fact, and then reading Folk of the Fringe, followed by Xenocide - and my love for his work became a family joke. If someone had read and enjoyed his work, I immediately found that person more interesting. I made an effort to read everything he had ever written, not only ecstatic when something new came out, but searching out his old works (some fifteen year olds become obsessed with movie stars. I was obsessed with Card's writing). But now, while his earlier works completely transformed and shape to this day the way I look at the world, his current work doesn't make me jump up and down. I work in a bookstore where I can actually borrow books - yet he has work out I haven't read. Unheard of for me a few years ago.
It's not my age - he had the greatest impact on me when I was fifteen, and that was only four years ago. And I still love his early work - Songmaster, The Worthing Saga, Ender's Game - but the newer stuff just doesn't have the same timeless depth to it.
Posted by Hazen (Member # 161) on :
I don't really think that Card has added more preaching to his books. It is preaching from a different perspective, but I think he has always put his views in his books, generally unconsciously. When I was younger, I didn't notice it in any of his early books, but there was a long gap in which I didn't read much by him (mostly because I had a hard time getting a hold of it), and reading some of his early short stories for the first time, I really started to notice it. Specifically, I read the stories contained in the "Unaccompanied Sonata" and "Changed Man" collections when I was a teenageer (about 6 years ago), but I didn't get to read the rest of "Maps in a Mirror" until I just recently, when it came out in paperback. Reading through the stories "Thousand Deaths" and "But we try not to act like it," it struck me about how much he goes on about the importance of artists in society. Thinking back, it looks to me like it was incredibly prevalent in his early books. And it strikes me that he dwelt on that subject just as much as does now on the beliefs that are currently most important to him. The passage from Speaker, for instance, strikes me as an example of it. While it struck me as incredibly true the first time I read it, it now seems to me very overdone and not a little self serving.
Looking at it from the perpective of his life history, it makes sense. When he wrote, for instance, Unaccompanied Sonata, he was relatively fresh out of getting a degree in a form art and working on another one. He had recently been part of an extremely demanding artistic enterprise. He was, it seems to me, in a perfect position to have his views about art on his mind a lot. Compare that with his situation in Shadow Puppets. He had lost a child not to long ago, which had to have a profound effect on him. So issues about families were probably on his mind a lot at that time. I am quite sure that when he both these stories, he merely wrote what he thougt was true and real. But I think his recent life experience made him more likely to empathize with Beans search for his unborn children, and that his early life experience made him more likely to empathize with a story about a stuggling artist. So I don't think he has become more preachy, it is just that different things have become more important to him.
I don't think there is anything wrong with not enjoying a story as much when it contains views that contradict positions that are dear to you. I also suspect that it is much easier to identify when an author's views become explicit when you disagree with them.
(I hope, by the way, that no one is annoyed by my playing amateur psycologist. I recognize that all that is just speculation, and that I am in no position to guess Card's state of mind.)
Now there is something that bugs me about Card's more recent books that isn't in his old ones. In his more recent books it seems that the solutions to problems have become a lot easier. This is most obvious in the Alvin Maker books, but even in his other work, it seems that there is always a group of Powerful People, who, when they become involved, solve everything fairly easily. In Shadow Puppets, it is Alai and his group, and the security agency on the station. Once they are involved, there is no real tension. In Children of the Mind, Jane and a few other people solve everything. Don't get me wrong, not all of his recent books are like this, but it seems to be fairly common recently. Another, minor point about his recent books that I don't like as much has to do with his style. His earlier books seemed more timeless, his more recent books seem more contemporary. He never shows off his style in the earlier books (except perhaps in the early Alvin books, where it fit right in), but there was something about it that made the world seem different, and I think that is important in imaginative fiction. For his contemporary novels, obviously, this doesn't matter.
As for series. I think it is best if an author writes an entire series all at once. At the very least, they should be outlined very thoroughly. I think multiple independent books in the same world are fine, but these are usually best if they are truly independent, with few recurring characters, situations, etc. I think that authors should try to finish series quickly, without going taking up more pages than are necessary or watering it down with empty books. The only time Card has really been guilty of this, in my opinion, is in Heartfire, which does not really advance the plot at all and could have been skipped without any loss.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote: it seems that there is always a group of Powerful People, who, when they become involved, solve everything fairly easily. In Shadow Puppets, it is Alai and his group, and the security agency on the station. Once they are involved, there is no real tension. In Children of the Mind, Jane and a few other people solve everything.
This seems to me to be a common failing towards the end of series. It's like a D&D campaign where the characters have gotten too powerful. During the series, the characters become more capable and more powerful. Either the characters have to face challenges that are artificially growing more difficult and somehow always seem to be barely managable to the characters (it's a good thing that magical zombie vampire dragons didn't atttack a few years ago -- we could barely manage quelling the outbreak of drunken rats back then), or things become easier for the characters.
This seems to be a common failing of series fantasy.
edit: Oh, I thought of a third option. Do what Eddings did in his second Malorean/Belgariad series -- artifically limit how and when the characters can use the cool abilities that the spent the entire last series building up.
[ August 05, 2004, 10:42 AM: Message edited by: mr_porteiro_head ]
Posted by ae (Member # 3291) on :
The simplest solution is simply to have characters not grow more powerful as time goes by. Many people in reality don't.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
It's funny...the first thing I thought of when I read MPH's last post was Sailor Moon. She gets more and more powerful as the series continues, so her enemies must also be getting more and more powerful because she always just barely defeats them. Same with all superhero stories.
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
Over the last two months I have reread Seventh Son, Red Prophet, Prentice Alvin, Alvin Journeyman, Heartfire, the Crystal City, Enchantment, Rebekah, Rachel & Leah, Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, and am in the middle of Shadow Puppets (ouch- writing it all out like that makes me wonder if I even have a life:) My only excuse is I have many on tape).
It is amazing. Those earlier works had something in them. They were mythic. They resonated. The first 3 Alvin books seemed to vibrate with mythic elements, from Lolla Wosiky's nighttime visit to Alvin to eight faced mound and the massacre at Tippy-canoe and Alvin's creation of the golden plow- it was like Alvin was following Joseph Cambell's script for truly mythic heroes. His entire life follows that pattern until, at last, he has touched the heart of creation, has finally understood his power and his purpose and how to do it.
It was so glorious. Even after I-don't-know-how-many rereads, it was glorious. Enchantment and Ender's Game, too. The Women of Genesis series is good too. But nothing compares to the power in those earlier works. The new ones are interesting, even great stories that keep your interest and are full of good ideas, but, having thought about it as I read, they lack those missing subconsciously mythic elements mentioned in that essay I cited above.
Ian
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
I'll add my voice to the choir. I agree with IanO's view. It's almost like he's done with analyzing the world and people and has become set in his ways... or closed minded... or preachy. *shrugs*
Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
Hm. I'm not exactly in THAT choir Telp. Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I have been "Saving" some of the older OSC books that I didn't know about at first for an opportune moment.
I recently read Wyrms and Hart's Hope. I'm 25 now. I read Ender's Game when I was 18. While they didn't move me quite as much they still did pack that power you are referring to.
I think OSC has actually gotten better at the "craft" of writing over time. But it was the rawness, that just slightly ragged edge that gave a lot of the older books their power. Because the skills are better his raw talent doesn't peek through as well because he doesn't need it as much.
Ender will always be my favorite though because I was an Ender as a child, and it speaks Truth I never thought could be articulated.
AJ
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
heh... maybe that is a little harsh.
Long live OSC!
Posted by Richard Berg (Member # 133) on :
How did I miss this thread?
Ian, I'm delighted to see you back on the forum. Thank you for expressing exactly how I feel about early OSC: a collection of myth and power that is certainly the reason I'm here, perhaps even the reason "I am" (the person I am today) at all. And yet, when earlier today I learned a friend was a fan, I recommended she not waste her time on Shadow Puppets.
Even with far less information, I am as confident as Geoff that more magic lies in that imagination. The pathos I experienced a decade ago was not coincidence. Age may have tempered things, but it also makes me more patient Posted by fallow (Member # 6268) on :
RB,
You should have put your foot down before the shadow series began. bereft of inspiration, cerebral-limping along the path of competence.
fallow
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
RB, thanks.
I wouldn't say the Shadow series is bad at all. I find it interesting and the characters well drawn. Except that Peter seems like he needs to be in a special ed program. I mean, he went from (at least from Ender and Val's perspective) a montrous genius who tamed the beast inside himself and out of whose soul came peace and a true world government (sort of like Adam Worthing, only a little nicer). You got the impression that "The Hegemon" was really about the disparate and contradictory elements within his soul, the hatred and loathing and manipulation with the love and the loyalty and charisma and how both sides came from the same soul. "Death and healing are within every hand," expresses it perfectly, and that is FROM the Hegemon.
Naturally, what is familiar is no longer as feared or dangerously beautiful. But some characters (such as Arslan, as much as I hated that book) or Adam Worthing retain the 'alienness' so that even after much time in their heads, one still is repelled and attracted to them at the same time.
But Peter has lost that. Though a necessary plot element, the whole bringing Achilles into Brazil, against the advice of EVERYONE, was so incredibly dumb- there are no words to express the stupidity involved. And it did not help that he had some escape measures planned. The preparations do not mitigate that absolutely moronic act.
I just hope to finally see some of the monstrous genius that unites the world, like Mikal or Adam Worthing or Napoleon (in AM) in the next book. Like I said, they are interesting. And even the "preachy" points fit the plot.
But I am listening to Speaker for the Dead (unabridged Dove audio). Dear lord, even 12 years later, having read the story many times, the power is still there. It is so finely crafted and paced. Even knowing what will happen, who the people are, what the mystery is, who the people will become, because I am listening to to, I am forced, even more than if I was reading it (and could skim quickly some lead up parts) to follow the relentless pace towards little climaxes that, themselves are building toward a supreme climax. I am so looking forward to Ender's speaking and his interactions with the wives and Human and his planting, to hear them performed well.
While not "blantantly" mythological (as it is SF and the myths can be hidden in the science and 'rivets') the mythology is subtextual and unconcious. What happens seems to be right, at all times. It was the same with the first 3 Alvin books. The book is satisfying because Ender's journey and healing follows the subconcious desires of myself, the reader, yet is not slavish in its telling the hero-myth.
Ender has, from the previous book, been carrying the guilt of the world on his shoulders, willingly, and this has given him great power. He is god-like, than one who, for the sake of humanity has been the destroyer- the avenger- and, while hating that role he played, willingly carries it, all the while hoping for redemption and forgiveness. And here, at last, he is able to connect with people through more than just a speaking, to symetrically mirror his role as destroyer with one of savior with respect to the piggies, and is able to finally undo, in some small way, the xenocide.
The book is redemption and forgiveness and understanding and compassion and cruelty all in one. The god-man following his heroic journey to bring life and salvation to all ramen.
I remember reading in the forward that OSC said there was a "delicious symmetry" in having Ender the Xenocide be the savior in this story. And that with many false starts, the story finally opened to him when he let Novinha's family "take over" and so the book became what it "needed" to be. Not to say that he wasn't in control at all times. But the story he found himself telling was not necessarily the one he had set out to, or at least not that alone. It grew organically and felt right and true and he followed that.
That is the key, I truly believe, in the old writings and the new ones. Things happened (both in the writing, in OSC's case and in the reading to the audience) that just seemed right- they should happen that way. Not that we wanted those things to happen (like the massacre of the Piggies in Xenocide), but it still felt "right" or true. They were more subconsciously created and so the mythic elements manifested themselves more easily.
Perhaps it was because back then, OSC was less aware of why his stories worked and so, those that did, were natural and less consciously crafted outgrowths than his books from the late 90's (excluding Enchantment and Lost Boys, of course).
The end of Children of the Mind sticks in my mind:
quote:Valentine let her tears of memory flow as Plikt's words washed over her, touching her now and then, but also not touching her because she knew far more about Ender than anyone here, and had lost more by losing him. Even more than Novinha, who sat near the front, her children gathered near her. Valentine watched as Miro put his arm around his mother even as he held to Jane on the other side of him. Valentine noticed also how Ela clung to and one time kissed Olhado's hand, and how Grego, weeping, leaned his head into stern Quara's shoulder, and how Quara reached out her arm to hold him close and comfort him. They loved Ender too, and knew him too; but in their grief, they leaned upon each other, a family that had strength to share because Ender had been part of them and healed them, or at least opened up the door of healing. Novinha would survive and perhaps grow past her anger at the cruel tricks life had played on her. Losing Ender was not the worst thing that happened to her; in some ways it was the best, because she had let him go.
Valentine looked at the pequeninos, who sat, some of them among the humans, some of them apart. To them this was a doubly holy place, where Ender's few remains were to be buried. Between the trees of Rooter and of Human, where Ender had shed a pequenino's blood to seal the pact between the species. There were many friends among pequeninos and humans now, though many fears and enmities remained as well, but the bridges had been built, in no small part because of Ender's book, which gave the pequeninos hope that some human, someday, would understand them; hope that sustained them until, with Ender, it became the truth.
And one expressionless hiveworker sat at a remote distance, neither human nor pequenino near her. She was nothing but a pair of eyes there. If the Hive Queen grieved for Ender, she kept it to herself. She would always be mysterious, but Ender had loved her, too; for three thousand years he had been her only friend, her protector. In a sense, Ender could count her among his children, too, among the adopted children who thrived under his protection.
In only three-quarters of an hour, Plikt was done. She ended simply:
"Even though Ender's aiua lives on, as all aiuas live on undying, the man we knew is gone from us. His body is gone, and whatever parts of his life and works we take with us, they aren't him any longer, they are ourselves, they are the Ender-within-us just as we also have other friends and teachers, fathers and mothers, lovers and children and siblings and even strangers within us, looking out at the world through our eyes and helping us determine what it all might mean. I see Ender in you looking out at me. You see Ender in me looking out at you. And yet not one of us is truly him; we are each our own self, all of us strangers on our own road. We walked awhile on that road with Ender Wiggin. He showed us things we might not otherwise have seen. But the road goes on without him now. In the end, he was no more than any other man. But no less, either."...
Only the mothertree remained in the middle of the clearing, bathed in light, heavy with fruit, festooned with blossoms, a perpetual celebrant of the ancient mystery of life.
So many books follow that theme and, from the explanations OSC has put forth, came to life in the same way. They grew far beyond (and subconsciously) what they had started to be.
Thank you, OSC.
A word about the BOT readers:)
Gabrielle de Cuir- Valentine, Novinha, Theresa Wiggin, Petra. She is brilliant. Just brilliant. She has the ability to make her voice soft and childlike and depressed and yet can, as Petra or Novinha or Carlotta to Graff, use it as a saw to rip into people with such scorn. The best. Absolutely the best.
Stefan Rudnicki- Ender, Graff, Narrator, Various others. Very good. Sometimes, tends to over-pronounce words, but still quite good.
Scott Brick- Libo, Bean, Pipo- Natural and easy to listen to. Especially during the conversation between Novinha and Pipo at the beginning of Speaker (they alternated male and female, there) worked beautifully with Gabrielle de Cuir. Expresses emotion very well without trying to hard. Especially as Bean, who's supposed to be logical and in control, you can see the emotion sometimes threaten to break through the facade.
John Rubenstein- Miro and Olhado- not really impressed. Not because the reading is bad (he did ok in the OP Center books), but it either seems too performed or the voice (which sounds kind of old) doesn't fit those young characters. Doesn't do youthful enthusiam and teasing well. The pigges in those scenes are annoying because of the voice.
Shadow of the Hegemon Reader of Peter- too old. Peter sounds like a 50 year old guy living with his parents. Again, doesn't do youthful banter well. The voice kept pulling me out.
Nana Visitor- the Abridged Alvin Maker Series- brilliant. Just brilliant. Countrified narrator is a little stilted, but the emotion is real.
Robby Benson- Lost Boys- The best. Period. No one is better. Children, adults, men, women. He does it all. His voice has very manly qualities, yet the childlike innocence comes through perfectly. And the southern accents and gentility of people like Bappy or Doug Douglas sound real and, in the case of Bappy, more scarry when you know what he is. Even knowing the story, knowing the mystery and outcome, I found it powerfully moving.
Mark Rolston- Ender's series (abridged)- not that great. Especially in Speaker and Xenocide. All young people tend to sound like brats, even when they aren't supposed to. Ok, if that's all you have, but I've heard better.
Well, anyway, those are my thoughts.
Ian
[ June 07, 2005, 10:11 AM: Message edited by: IanO ]
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
lan, I have noticed what you describe here. And I really like Geoff's explaination. It rings true to me.
But I also have felt lately that Card includes more of his actual beliefs in his characters than in years past. For those who have beliefs similar to OSC, this is not a problem. For those who don't, they really feel it and it grates. I really like what m_p_h said, too. OSC is far less "preachy" than many of the great authors of speculative fiction.
quote: Yeah, its forshadowed in the book. And I know LDS history enough to know how Alvin will die and, unfortunately, the likely outcome of Navoo- I mean the crystal city- with its tabernacle [Roll Eyes] .
I guess that's the real downside to basing your book, however losely, on a real person.
Keep in mind that Card has no problems with changing or "improving" the course of history. Pastwatch is a good example of this. The idea with LDS history is that Joseph Smith tried to lead his people to Zion and his people (and the rest of the world) were not ready for it. Card may "rewrite" this theme so that the people were ready for it and things do come to their intended completion. I wouldn't be surprised either way.
Posted by Knightboy (Member # 6787) on :
Man, am I sorry the thread I started got sidetracked!
(So, of course, I will sidetrack this thread a bit with a little of my own POV.)
1) I never thought that Peter had "gotten stupid" when he brought Achilles with him. It seemed a logical extention of Peter's most successful strategy: Get another genius, and get them to do what you want. The fact that Achilles didn't work out, and the reasons he couldn't work out provided a nice counterpoint to Valentine.
2) I also thought that a professed homosexual getting married to "join the circle of life" was just an interesting twist. I found it a nice reversal from the usual professed "straight" man leaving his family because he's actually gay, but I didn't find it "preachy". I just viewed it as the difference between making a self-informed decision about what you have to sacrifice to get what you want, and making a self-deluding decision to get what everyone else tells you you should want.
Posted by Ralphie (Member # 1565) on :
There were some excellent posts in this thread. I'm bumping it just so they don't get lost in the void.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
I don't preach in my fiction. I preach in my essays. My characters have strong opinions, but they rarely coincide with mine. What I observe in this thread is that when you THINK you know what I think, and it disagrees with what you think, THEN you accuse me of being preachy.
I remember when my play Father, Mother, Mother, and Mom was playing in Utah. No preaching - I was simply treating Mormon polygamy in the late 1800s as a fact, and seeing what it did in the lives of those who willingly practiced it.
But on the same night, after the same performance, audience members would come up to me and one would say, "I don't care what you say, polygamy was God's will!" and another would say, "I don't care what you say, polygamy was always a terrible thing and a curse on the Church."
Notice that they both thought I was "preaching" something that I was not preaching at all; and they both were ANGRY at me for preaching it.
So I have long since resigned myself to being accused of being preachy, when in fact what I do is try to show human beings as truthfully as I can, including setting out THEIR reasons for doing the things they do. Everybody has a self-story that allows them to live with themselves; I'd be a bad fiction writer if I had my characters neatly divided up into good guys and bad guys.
So some readers feel cheated because Peter turns out, from Peter's own point of view, not to be as evil as he was from Ender's point of view (duh); others are furious with me for "preaching" things that I don't think I ever would have preached because I don't even believe it. <grin>
As for some sense of deterioration in my work ... the odd thing is that people who say this invariably prefer the works they read first. For what it's worth, there are now a growing number of readers who read Ender's Shadow first, and EG long after, and most of those I've heard from think that ES is the better book. While there are still a few surviving dinosaurs who read EG as a novelet first and as a novel only later - and they often remain convinced that I ruined everything when I made it into a book.
Just in case anybody cares, I'm a far more mature writer now, and what I used to do using raw story techniques (need suffering: inflict physical pain) I now handle more in line with more plausible events that bear more resemblance to real life, and let the pain be carried emotionally.
But I still know how to write adventure, and do so when the story requires. I even know how to torment my characters with the best of them ...
The real secret here is that I try NEVER TO WRITE THE SAME BOOK TWICE. And you're bound to like one kind of book better than another. Do you really think I would even WANT to keep writing Ender's Game over and over? What's the point of that, when you can simply reread it? I'd like to think my career consisted of writing different books every time. And if I achieve that, then inevitably some will please some readers more than others.
Some think Hart's Hope is the best book I ever wrote; but it's my worst-selling book. Are they wrong?
The Shadow books are NOT the same KIND of fiction as Ender's Game. They aren't "worse," they're simply not going to fulfil the same set of expectations. Does that mean I have somehow gotten worse? I certainly hope not. After all, I wrote the best novel of my career so far, Enchantment, in the midst of my apparent collapse ...
But then, Enchantment is my first real romantic love story - but it's the kind I like, a husband and wife coming to love each other when they have already committed to marriage.
Instead of wondering why I got worse, why not simply realize that not everybody is going to like all my books, and maybe the symptoms worth examining aren't so much in me as in you. Why DON'T you like my more recent books as well as my earlier ones? Is it because some of my essays have annoyed you, and now you read my fiction with a sourer disposition? No book can survive a hostile reading. Is it because you've already READ my earlier books, and so I've lost the ability to surprise you? Is it because I'm simply writing a KIND of fiction that doesn't appeal to you as much, in which case (again) the difference is in you, and not in me?
Of course, you might all be right, and senial dementia may be setting in. But what an inconvenient time for it. Just as my books are starting to have some kind of impact, I've already lost it ...
Posted by Zotto! (Member # 4689) on :
*patpats OSC*
Frankly, I think the writing is MUCH more solid now. I reread Songmaster a while back, and while it is very high on my list of favorite books of all time, it was pretty clear to me how much you've improved as a writer as far as plot, structure and just plain EXPLAINING things goes (it was also pretty clear to me how much I've grown as a reader that I can actually notice things like that, but that's a different post *grin*).
That I don't find, say, Shadow of the Hegemon to be as fascinating a book as Songmaster tells me the rather obvious fact that as a choir member of my church and a fairly repressed young man rather than a child-genius trying to take over the world, I'm going to relate more to Ansset than Peter. *grin*
I read most of your books in a vaguely chronological order, by the pure chance that I happened to discover them in bookstores in that order (I'm pretty deprived here in Hawaii, at least book-wise *grin*) and while it's true that some of your older works speak more to me than some of your more recent efforts, I don't see a corrollary between level of writing skill or "preachiness factor" and level of enjoyment. Rather, some of your older works were simply dealing with issues that are closer to my heart than some of your newer works. In any event, books like Enchantment written recently are just as high on my favorites list as books from the Worthing Saga era, and the only reason I can see for this is that the issues explored in them are closer to me than other books. Certainly you've told very DIFFERENT stories, and each one adds to the clarity with which you can tell new ones. And for the record, I don't think the "preachiness" factor has changed volume in recent years; you've had characters expressing views quite differently from your own (from what I can tell) since the beginning. In any case, I don't think it's a terrible to sin to have the occasional character actually AGREE with you ANYway.
And by the way, no matter how badly it does sales-wise, Harts Hope is a friggin' EXcellent book, dude.
(BTW, nice thread, IanO )
[ November 25, 2005, 05:55 AM: Message edited by: Zotto! ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"What I observe in this thread is that when you THINK you know what I think, and it disagrees with what you think, THEN you accuse me of being preachy."
Well, no. I dare you to look me in the eye and say that the whole Theresa-lecturing-Bean-and-by-proxy-the-reader scene wasn't preachy.
I think the big difference now is that rather than just making the choice and living the example, your characters nowadays have to explain those choices or have their choices explained to them. At length.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
I always felt that the Shadow books seemed more "preachy" mostly because they were the first ones were OSC really dealt directly with politics both a significant amount and with pretty much current Earth governments.
Come on Tom, name an OSC book where the choices aren't explained in detail.
Hobbes Posted by Zotto! (Member # 4689) on :
*grin*
*raises hand* Tom, I'm not OSC, but I didn't think that that scene was particularly preachy at all; I seem to recall characters in the past (I'm thinking Moozh or whatever his name was from Homecoming, though I'm not recalling a specific scene, alas) giving similar "lectures" about their views to other characters. It seems like the only time people notice it is when the character's views seem to match OSC's, as Theresa's seem to. What I don't understand is why EVERY character has to disagree with OSC. He's certainly written more about megalomaniacs and child-molesters and what have you than characters who have similar opinions as him. And I agree with Hobbes.
I'm not trying to kiss OSC's butt with fanboyish glee, BTW, since it seems like people get jumped on for agreeing with him. Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
I don't reread my work, so I don't know what scene with Theresa you're talking about. Certainly I don't THINK I ever used Theresa as a surrogate for me, and she certainly did a lot of things that I thought were counterproductive, so she certainly doesn't "stand" for me. But who knows? Maybe you hit upon a scene where a character and I agree! I certainly don't remember.
Still, if anyone was being preachy, it was Theresa, not me.
Not every character is Clint Eastwood. Some of them talk about their feelings and ideas. In fact, there are actually people in the world who ARE preachy, and they're bound to show up in my books along with the strong silent types <grin>.
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
In starting this thread, I certainly did not mean to imply that your books had gotten worse. I have always enjoyed your work and will continue to do so. But the power they had seemed more visceral, more gut-wrenching, more cathartic. The word I keep coming back to is "raw"- physically and emotionally. Your characters were deeply flawed and even selfish- and yet you could love them even as you rooted for them to fail. And some of that is missing in the later works.
Maybe you're right. Maybe it's me. I'm not 18 and maybe I'm not surprised anymore. But then again, SoTG, I thought, was brilliant and retained some the power I loved in your earlier works. Han Tzu and Alai's rise to power was brilliant. And the heartbreak of the killings perpetrated in the name of Islam.
And most of the time, I *DO* agree with you're moral universe, so I'm not jarred because I am arguing with you. It's just that things jump out at me as being *you* rather than the character's opinions. An example (and it's small and dumb, but it jumped into my head as I wrote this): In Heartfire, John Adams meditates on America- the idea of freedom and hope- and how he was the real thing when Tom Jefferson had only been pretending at being a freedom loving patriot. Then, in SoTG, Peter is thinking about manipulation and getting away with anything when the press loves you and then thinks of how much he learned about hypocritical manipulation from Thomas Jefferson. Small, inconsequential and stupid, I know. But for some reason the same worldview these very *different* characters had about Thomas Jefferson- a man that many people revere and who *seemed* to be a real freedom loving patriot, but who in fact may have been the opposite and simply got away with it because the press, then and now, loved him, not unlike certain political people in our time- was jarring- not because it may not be true, which I'm not really sure of- but because it sounding like two characters were being used as a sounding board to speak about political figures today who are judged as being one thing but are not, but still get away with it because the press loves them.
Then again, you would say (and are probably right) that I am reading too much into what amounts to passing comments that occur in two books. And, as I said, you're probably right. Maybe *I* (and I can only speak for myself, here) have become hypersensitive to *any* even casual agreement between your essays and your novels that might smack of preaching.
And you can't write the same novel twice, it's true. You always reach for something new. And it's unfair, I suppose, for us to keep wanting the same old thing. But having recently reread Seventh Son, Red Prophet, and Prentice Alvin (again), they have a power that is wholely unlike Alvin Journeymen, Heartfire and Crystal City. They are truly mythic. They resonate and end with accomplishment and movement in a way the later books somehow lack. The later books seemed more episodic. Character evolution seemed to have ended.
Ah, but I loved Enchantment. And Ender's Shadow. They, especially Enchantment, were beautiful, in the same way Songmaster, The Homecoming Saga, The Worthing Saga, Wyrms, Hart's Hope, the Ender Series, Treason and Pastwatch were beautiful.
Let me just say thank you and that this was in no way intended as a criticism. It was more an observation through an admittedly biased lens.
But I thank you for creating novels and people I care about deeply, and for illuminating so many aspects of humanity- not once or even twice but dozens of times in numerous settings.
Ian Ohlander
Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
quote:Well, no. I dare you to look me in the eye and say that the whole Theresa-lecturing-Bean-and-by-proxy-the-reader scene wasn't preachy.
Where do I feel like I've heard this before? It's so familiar, I ... I ... I KNOW!
quote:Orson Scott Card, I CHALLENGE THEE!
That's it!
And Hobbes is right that there have often been lengthy explanations of choices in the past. In fact, they are some of my favorite parts of Wyrms, and are why I asked him to send me a copy of it on my mission.
[ March 29, 2005, 12:02 PM: Message edited by: A Rat Named Dog ]
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
OSC sure has a point.
I once worked at an advertising agency where we produced a commercial for a mattress store. The spot involved the usual host (who'd been doing these silly commercials for years) appearing in the midst of a ghostly seance where she informed the people around the table about the great new deals on box springs and comforters at her newest mattress superstore!
Lo and behold we got a few letters on that one. Two were posted on the wall: the first, from a conservative christian who thought showing a seance encouraged Satanic, devilish behavior. The other was from a Wiccan who complained that we were making fun of her faith.
The moral? You will never please everyone, and you can always offend everyone, no matter what you say or do.
As for me, I did see a noticeable shift in Unky Orson's language after "Prentice Alvin." I loved the sense of the first three books that I was sitting by a campfire, hearing these people speak their own peculiar dialect. The magic was in the style of the writing, even more than the story itself. From "Journeyman" and beyond, the novels read like any other novel on the shelf, all the charm of that language lost.
I'll miss that unique style, but there you go. Life has a way of going on...
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Where do I feel like I've heard this before? It's so familiar, I ... I ... I KNOW!"
*grin* In my defense, I'd argue that the situations are not exactly analogous. In this case, I'm simply saying that I don't agree with his assessment of his own writing, rather than, say, challenging him to a writing contest.
*laugh*
But, honestly, it never occurred to me that he might not think Theresa was being preachy in that segment; it always felt to me like a John Galt radio moment. Having heard from the horse's pen that he intended it to be a character trait rather than a bit of didactics is going to force me to reassess the scene a bit. Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
*needs to re-read Enchantment and Hart's Hope*
It's interesting to me that OSC considers Enchantment his best work. However without re-reading those two stick out in my mind for comparison. Enchantment isn't as gory as Hart's Hope but they are both love stories. Enchantment is definitely the more polished palatable story. But I'd still argue that Hart's Hope is the more powerful story of the two. And I read Enchantment first.
In fact, with the exception of the Ender's Game series itself, I've read more of the newer books before most of the older books, partially because the older ones are harder to find. And it is the older ones that leave me going *wow* and pack more punch. Hart's Hope especially.
AJ
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
BTW, I *luved* Enchantment. I am so glad that OSC is interested in doing more romance, 'cause I really like his handling of the subject.
I am not into most romance because it is too cheesy, fluffy, and unsatisfying. But I will take romance from Card any day.
Scott, I will give it as my opinion that one of the things a lot of people have found distasteful in the Shadow series is the strong motivations in Bean and Petra to procreate, and the idea that all humans feel thus. *I* certainly have a strong desire to procreate, but apparently not everyone feels that way and the idea that "everyone does" or "everyone should" bothers them.
Posted by Zotto! (Member # 4689) on :
Geoff: Wyrms is one of my favorites as well, for exactly the same reason.
Tom: Yeah, I think it was a character trait, dude. Wasn't Theresa some sort of scientist specializing in human communities and reproduction or something? Seems to make sense for her to be concerned with makin' babies.(Anyone have a copy of First Meetings handy? I think that's where I'm remembering it from. *grin*)
Bev: OSC's romances are totally some of the best bits in his books for me; I'm glad he's thinking of writing more in the future too. Did you read Maps in a Mirror? There was a story in there about a guy who traveled back in time to spend a day with an old love, which sounds a little silly but resonated really strongly with me.
[ March 30, 2005, 03:24 AM: Message edited by: Zotto! ]
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
Interesting on the Jefferson references. My books ALWAYS reflect my current reading. At the time of Heartfire, though, what I had been reading was a biography of John Quincy Adams, which contained references to his father's attitudes toward Jefferson. But at the time, I still was a complete Jefferson defender.
It was only later, when writing Giant, that I had just read the Chernow biography of Hamilton that laid it all to rest. Getting chapter and verse on how Jefferson manipulated the political destruction of Hamilton, who really WAS what Jefferson only pretended to be (and from an impartial-seeming biographer who had no qualms about showing Hamilton's real defects), ticked me off. So that example was bound to come to mind. I had no idea that there would be any coincidence between Heartfire and Giant.
Here's the thing: In Heartfire, I was showing a character's viewpoint even though it didn't coincide with mine. In Giant, I was drawing on stuff I had learned in a recent book (like the Amaranth in Speaker, which was in a Sci-Am article at the time I was writing it), and supposing (as I often do) that readers have all read what I just read; in that case, I was taking it for granted that this information was available to everyone and the character was simply using it as an example. The Jefferson stuff wasn't the point, it was merely supporting the point.
But I can see why both felt as they did to you.
Ditto on the reproductive drive stuff, Beverly. I mean, the idea that almost all people have a powerful drive toward reproduction is so obvious on its face that it wouldn't cross my mind that anyone would be so oblivious to science as to take this as me soapboxing.
But of course, we do live in such idiotic times that it is actually regarded as a POLITICAL statement to say that humans, like every other successful species, have a drive to procreate that dominates most human activities and trumps most other human preferences.
But you're probably right, Beverly. Though I didn't look on the boards at the time (this stuff came up in Puppets, didn't it? Or was it in Hegemon?), I thought I was writing about characters trying to persuade Bean to have babies despite his desire to put an end to his genetic defect by not reproducing. Therefore those characters would make PRO-reproduction arguments, and since I needed the babies to exist, it was obvious that their arguments would have to prevail over Bean's objections. Duh. It was what the story and the characters' desires required. And since Bean's objections were serious ones that rational and moral people might choose to make, I had to make it persuasive to readers that Bean would believe the arguments against that view.
It's about the story, kids! <grin>
So again I say, those who wish to be irritated will be irritated, but wouldn't it have been much more irritating (and much worse fiction writing) if I had made Bean simply say, "Yeah, Petra, let's do the nasty and make some ankle-biters! Who cares if they die young!"
As for the comments about my older work being more "visceral" and "powerful," absolutely right. Back then, when I wanted to make the reader feel strong emotion, I tortured somebody or resorted to grotesquerie. Since then, I've learned what I think of as subtler and better ways to achieve my purposes. But for some readers, the method WAS the end in itself, so when I stopped using that method, the books lost some of their fire.
Believe me, I can still do that stuff. I'm still proud of coming up with the Sweet Sisters in Hart's Hope and the heads-in-jars in Wyrms. And I'm working on a short story based on a thousand-ideas session we just did here in New Zealand about species on another world that were not just predator-prey in their evolutionary competition, but also had several species following a shepherd strategy, protecting and managing their "flocks." The shepherds had evolved the ability to sense predator-level intelligence at a reasonable distance (presumably magneto-electric brain activity) and so predators evolved the ability to distribute their intelligence and follow other strategies to become invisible to the shepherd species. The results would be extravagantly grotesque ... and highly surprising (and dangerous) to humans when they first visit that planet. It'll be a super-grotesque osc story - because there's a reason for it to be.
But stories like Holy, where I used something gross just because it was gross - hey, don't I get to grow out of youthful things? <grin> After all the years I got ridiculed for torturing my characters, and now I find that I get criticized for NOT torturing them so much any more. Can't win for losing, here.
Posted by Blackfaer (Member # 7624) on :
Before I say anything else, as a relative newcomer to posting in these forums, let me quote a friend of mine and thereby state the position on which I come from.
"The worst of Orson Scott Card's books is about as good as the best of almost any other author's."
This was a comment made by the man who introduced me to Ender's Game, and one which I wholeheartedly agree with. So please, no one should take anything I might say as any sort of claim that Mr. Card's novels are anything short of masterful.
That said, I have to agree with Ian to some extent. I haven't read the books all chronologically, nor have I read the complete works (though I'm nearing that point), nor did I read them when I was younger, but all in the past four years.
But I have noticed not that the writing is more preachy or stronger/weaker, etc., but that the line between hero/villian and good/evil has become more defined and less grey in the books written more recently than the earlier books. Interestingly, in my readings of other authors I usually find that the polarization of values like this diminishes rather than increasing as time passes. It does seem to me however that many of the decisions characters make in later novels are easier from a moral standpoint, and the decisions are more about finding the best strategies for solving a problem, not about choices between morally grey territory. (I would read through some of the novels to cite examples, but I've already spent too much time on this and I have a sleepy wife awaiting me in our bed.)
Of course, this is only my own reading, and any good book is nearly as much in the mind of the reader as the writer.
I might comment also that in the reading of Mr. Card's columns and essays, I find his political commentary to be rather polarized as well, praising the current presidential administration while demonizing the (admittedly morally corrupt) former. Not to say that most of his points are not valid, but I've not seen much in the way of even mild criticism of the current administration or any sort of mild praise for any choices or decisions of the politicians on the left side of the aisle. And there are definitely good people on both sides, and poor judgement on both sides, all the time.
Naturally, I'm biased in this observation, being a moderate liberal myself (though I'm conservative on many issues). So my view is going to be leftward-leaning, but I personally think I'm as objective as one can be in these observations. Politically, I usually find myself agreeing with Mr. Card's values and priorities but disagreeing with his opinions on who is best able to manage the country in this manner and what the best methods are.
And a side note to Tom: John Galt? While I adore Ayn Rand's writings, the very idea of comparing a heavy-handed philosopher (how many pages is that radio speech?) to the subtle talent of Mr. Card's mastery of storytelling is rather humourous. I don't know that I've ever found anything of Mr. Card's personal philosophies to be even remotely laid out on a platter like that.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
Hmmm. I WAS aware that Achilles was one of the few flat-out villains that I had ever created, and I consented to that, because there really ARE people in the world - sometimes very powerful people - who are as mad as a hatter or as purely evil as you can imagine a human ever being. Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein - people who regard killing others as nothing, if for any reason it seems desirable.
And in Enchantment, Baba Yaga is such a thorough-going villain in Russian literature, and I had so much fun with her in the semi-comic scenes between her and Bear, that I just didn't try to "explain" her as I did with Beauty in Hart's Hope.
Maybe that's laziness; or maybe that's the result of my feeling that doggone it, after all these years of trying to understand EVERYBODY, maybe I could just write somebody who was really, really bad.
But there's no villain, really, in Magic Street, and I didn't really lean on the old Unmaker so much in Crystal City (though of course from Journeyman on, I think it was, that series now sucks anyway). And I don't think there's anything even approaching a "villain" or a clear line between good and evil in Sarah, Rebekah, or Rachel and Leah.
But the girl in Treasure Box was unrelentingly evil, wouldn't you say? And the bad girl in Homebody. I mean, I've drawn the lines very clearly in some books. And murked them up in others. Depends on what was happening. In Kingsmeat, the whole point was the moral murkiness of the situation, as also in Unaccompanied Sonata. But in Treason, the bad guys are BAD BAD BAD with no attempt, beyond some cursory flim-flam right at the end, to justify their badness. And don't tell me I made Stilson merely a misunderstood well-meaning kid after all ...
[ March 30, 2005, 06:17 AM: Message edited by: Orson Scott Card ]
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
I think it was Anne Kate who once applied a quote from your books to you.
quote: "Let me tell you the most beautiful story I know.
A man was given a dog, which he loved very much.
The dog went with him everywhere,
but the man could not teach it to do anything useful.
The dog would not fetch or point,
it would not race or protect or stand watch.
Instead the dog sat near him and regarded him,
always with the same inscrutable expression.
'That's not a dog, it's a wolf,' said the man's wife.
'He alone is faithful to me,' said the man,
and his wife never discussed it with him again.
One day the man took his dog with him into his private airplane
and as they flew over high winter mountains,
the engines failed
and the airplane was torn to shreds among the trees.
The man lay bleeding,
his belly torn open by blades of sheared metal,
steam rising from his organs in the cold air,
but all he could think of was his faithful dog.
Was he alive? Was he hurt?
Imagine his relief when the dog came padding up
and regarded him with that same steady gaze.
After an hour the dog nosed the man's gaping abdomen,
then began pulling out intestines and spleen and liver
and gnawing on them, all the while studying the man's face.
'Thank God,' said the man.
'At least one of us will not starve.'
Of course, we were the dogs. It is not enough that you have 'fed' us emotionally and spiritually all these years. We must yip at your heels and tell you the latest was not up to snuff and 'you must do this'. I don't think any of us truly mean that.
And in restrospect, especially given your explanations (the Jefferson example, for instance, or the plot necessity of having Bean marry and procreate and thus the required convincing that character would need), it seems obvious that I, at least, have become hypersensitive to certain aspects of your fiction. I may have to stop reading your political essays (as OCD as I am about reading your stuff) simply because they interfere with my enjoyment of your fiction. And I would gladly trade one for the other.
But people change. I am a 31 year old divorced father, not some fresh-faced inexperienced 18 year old kid. Obviously the 'baggage' and lens through which I ingest these stories has changed. That said, I didn't enjoy the pain you put people through in your earlier works simply for the pain. But it made their experience more mythological. Kubuki theater comes to mind, exaggerated and clear. There was a line that was balanced well: on the one hand powerful events and extreme consequences, and on the other, realistic characters that were never one thing. (Even the "cursory flim-flam" at the end of Treason was more than just a moral nod of the head. I couldn't believe every single man, woman and child in Anderson was truly evil. But they still had to be stopped and Lanik was the one who paid the price, carrying that burden and guilt, and the scream of the earth, forever. It was morally grey even as it was seen as absolutely necessary. And the girls in Homebody and Treasure Box were truly bad- and I liked them as villains. They worked and the stories worked). But it was that combination that emotionally drained and overwhelmed and uplifted the reader.
I think the "patty-cake with Baby Huey" comments made by critics about your works were rather smug literary reactions to the most visceral (and successful) elements of your novels. I love some of King's work for the same reason. He puts you so fully in the character's skin that you identify with them when the pain comes.
I've always thought of it as putting your heart in a blender and hitting puree. Oh God, but do you feel and hurt- but it means something. It has a purpose. It gives meaning.
And you are not the same person, certainly. You strive to tell different stories. You have different interests, you're older, wiser, more experienced. And you might consider the earlier novels good but excessive. And your stories deal with situations where the danger and violence are more subtle and muted and indirect (though "Pageant Wagon" was also this way as well and it is my absolute favorite of your short stories, so go figure.) (BTW- I never thought the Alvin Maker series had started to suck at Journeyman. It had just changed. )
I guess I should stop now. I would hate to believe that comments like mine had made you decide to stop writing fiction and be frustrated with your fans whom you can't seem to please. For all my 'observations' about differences in style I still buy your work when it comes out (usually that day).
When it comes down to it, your works have been the most influential in my life, with the exception of works of my religion, obviously. As I said before, I came to them young and naive and inexperienced and learned and felt so much. I was changed at my core and my outlook and way of thinking have not been influenced a little by you. In so many ways you articulated things that, up until then, I *believed* but did not really understand enough to see clearly or explain and *know*. I learned about fatherhood and marriage from Ender and Deaver and Nafai and Alvin Sr and Orem's Father. I saw clearly the power of community stories and our allegience to those communities, and how we are all bound together in a great tapestry, even as we sometimes selfishly tear at each other, attempting to 'cut those strings'. I learned about responsibility and goodness and sacrifice, for the good of all. I saw the stories we tell ourselves about our motives, that even evil people tell in their hearts, and the way all of us in our hearts are desperately lonely creatures struggling to be known and loved and to have purpose, to be part of a true crystal city. And I was changed and am changed for it. These eyes and this mind and this heart were changed by your words.
But that doesn't mean that we, as your fans, own you or your work or have a right to tell you what you should write about or how you should do it.
Thank you for all of that you have written.
Ian
[ March 30, 2005, 02:48 PM: Message edited by: IanO ]
Posted by polemic (Member # 7672) on :
I think this thread has tapped an undercurrent in the collective conscious of the OSC readership. My brother and I were just commenting to each other last summer that some of the later OSC stuff doesn't have that wonderful edge that the earlier work had.
I don't think it's a matter of becoming desensitized to his style. I read both the Homecoming and Alvin Maker series for the first time within the last year, and in both cases felt that the earlier books in those series "had it," while the later ones, while still good, were not the same. E.g. the later books had no moments on the order of Nafai penetrating the dome or Alvin making the living golden plow.
The argument that the newer work is "just different," and that by not being as taken with it I'm really only revealing a preference, also does not ring true. It wasn't torture or grotesquerie that gave the earlier work its power. I don't know what it was, exactly, but it seems to have been more connected to the intricacy and magic of the events and ideas. But that's pretty vague, I know.
I don't think the lesser magnitude of some of the later works are due to ideology shock, preachiness, or underly-ambiguous characters, as discussed above.
I also don't think it's because I'm hungering for the same stories to be told again. For example, the whole Moozh story from Homecoming was very powerful to me, and was quite different from the OSC stories that had impacted me previously (Alvin, Ender, etc.).
I think Geoff is right that OSC still has it in him. Shadow Puppets was, for me, a return to the magic and power of yore. (btw, the comment about Bean/Petra being like Anakin/Amidala was ridiculous). Ender's Shadow also had that edge, but the in-between books weren't quite at the same level.
OSC recently wrote about the need for a great Kennedy-to-the-moon-like mission for non-fossil fuels to be developed before the world runs out of gas. What mission will inspire him to squeeze out all the concentrated "aw350m3" before his gas runs out?
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
"Sometimes the magic works." (I forget the origin of this quote, but I know it's from some author or other).
I tend to see the magic contained in the books themselves, not the author. Sometimes the spirit flows through you. Sometimes your words touch someone profoundly, and all you can do is stand back and give thanks. Other times, you do your best but the power didn't quite make the connection with someone else's mind. There's an art, and a craft, that help to be sure. But there also seems to be an inexplicable something, and when it flows, it's lovely. You spend your whole life trying to find it again. But like Narnia, you can't force trying to get there.
I think OSC has been incredibly blessed. The magic has worked often for him and his readers. But it would be a mistake for readers to hold him completely responsible for the Magic.
Posted by Michiel (Member # 7649) on :
It feels a little odd to post this on OSC's own forum, so I feel restrained, but I must concur with some of the criticism of OSC's most recent work. I am with Polemic. I am thinking especially of the Shadows series, actually.
I thought "Ender's Shadow" was a brilliant book, absolutely wonderfully and powerfully done, but I was deeply disappointed in all of the following Shadows books. I read them all, I bought them all the minute they came out, but they didn't "do" it for me.
For example, I found the depiction of Peter to be so at odds with everything we knew about Peter up to that point as to be entirely unbelievable. I thought the Peter from EG etc. was a very powerful character. The Peter in the Shadows series is but a pale shadow of the original Peter, and to my mind entirely unconvincing. Never in a thousand years would this kid have taken over the world. The absence of actual grown-ups running the political and military scene is also grossly unrealistic and in fact undermines the whole premise of EG, where the relationship between the adults who run the show, but who need the (genetically enhanced) kids to do the job, using their innate flexibility, creativity, works very well.
But as Aristotle taught in the Ethics: young people are no good at politics, because it's the art of EXPERIENCE, of the knowledge of human nature. Sure, there is the occasional Alexander and Napoleon, but even they were not 12 or 15 when they conquered the world. And they were military men, not political strategists. Most politicians are types like Talleyrand, Bismarck, Disraeli--aged and wise. I bought Peter in EG writing brilliant analysis behind the scenes, but the Peter in the Shadows books couldn't translate those essays into political reality as far as I'm concerned.
I just finished re-reading Speaker of the Dead and if you objectively compare, the later Shadow books just don't get close to that level in terms of maturity, psychological astuteness, plot, making you care. I don't buy the argument that OSC is maturing as a writer, and therefore the later books are better but different. I think that, if you look at the great writers, that there is no clear link between chronology and quality of their works.
I don't believe it has anything to do with OSC losing his magic. Maybe the Shadows books do better with younger readers? I first read EG when I was a teen, and I am close to thirty now, but still loved it when I re-read it recently. I share much of OSC's politics, and I think it's silly to say he's "preaching", so that's not it. Maybe OSC is too prolific lately?
OSC could make us fall in love with a computer program, fear a seven year old boy, shed tears for the possible extinction of an alien species. A writer of such genius should be able to do a lot better than Shadow of the Giant or Shadow of the Hegemon.
I say this as a devoted fan, continual (re-)reader, recommender and buyer of all OSC books!
[ March 30, 2005, 04:59 PM: Message edited by: Michiel ]
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
I think it totally makes sense that those who liked OSC's early books would not like his latter books as much. His style *has* changed--in several ways. And they fell in love with the original style. I imagine there are plenty of others who prefer the latter style. And those who prefer the former might even have nasty things to say about them.
It is true. You can't please everyone.
Keep on doing your best, Scott. I'll keep reading. Posted by Blackfaer (Member # 7624) on :
quote: Keep on doing your best, Scott. I'll keep reading. [Smile]
I second that. Lucky for me, I still have a few to go of the ones already written.
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
I third that.
Posted by Jenny Gardener (Member # 903) on :
I certainly don't think OSC has lost his magic. I'm just saying that sometimes it works between a writer and a reader, and sometimes it doesn't. You can't really control it too much.
Posted by HandEyeProtege (Member # 7565) on :
I think this is a fascinating topic, if only because I've been pondering the same thing for some time. The word "mythic" resonates with me, but I can't put a finger on what it really means.
In thinking about it, though, I discovered another factor that, for me, greatly affects my attachment to a book: the setting. That seems odd, because I *know* that it's really the characters I'm attached to, but I think it's the same way one gets attached to your home in real life - that's where the people you love are.
I'm drawn to a relatively contained setting - one in which I can sit myself down in a corner and watch the events play out. Battle school had that. The towns of Hatrack, Basilica, Milagre, even Hart's Hope - I felt at home in all of them. Some piece of the magic is lost when the characters are no longer rooted. Peter and Wang Mu, searching for the real power behind congress. Alvin as a journeyman. The entire Shadow series (after Ender's Shadow) jumps from country to country in every chapter.
This is by no means a criticism - some stories have external journeys as well as internal. It just surprised me when I realized that, over time, OSC's stories have tended towards that outward journey. Anyone else feel that way?
Posted by Agnes Bean (Member # 7614) on :
quote:Scott, I will give it as my opinion that one of the things a lot of people have found distasteful in the Shadow series is the strong motivations in Bean and Petra to procreate, and the idea that all humans feel thus. *I* certainly have a strong desire to procreate, but apparently not everyone feels that way and the idea that "everyone does" or "everyone should" bothers them.
While the theme of “everyone wants to procreate” initially bothered me—it certainly contradicts my world view, and if one checks out the “childfree” community on live journal, I think it becomes abundantly clear that not everyone; wants to make babies”—after thinking about it, I realized that these views did come from the characters. Yes, clearly OSC holds them too. But the books did not preach. Occasionally the characters did, but then I took issue with the character just like I would take issue with anyone who preached at me, not with OSC. Besides, as OSC said, they were all preaching in hopes of convincing Bean to have babies, so it’s not like their pro reproduction stance was particularly forced. And clearly, Bean having babies was incredibly important to the plot.
I adored the Shadow Series, especially SotG, despite my disagreement with some of the views presented, because the story was compelling and the characterization amazing. It might help that I haven’t read any of OSC’s political essays, so although I vaguely know his political views, most don’t jump out at me. The only thing I’ve really noticed throughout the books is the procreation thing, but as I said above, that made sense in context.
Speaking of that, a comment on Achilles: Yes, Achilles is pretty damn crazy evil. But I still think he was a well done character. His insanity seemed real to me. He was not an evil overlord taken straight from a fantasy novel. He was not Voldemort or Sauron. He was charming and ambitious, it’s just that his ambitions were evil and he had that little problem with killing people who saw him weak. His evil fit with the real world. Recently I was the German movie Downfall, which is about Hitler’s last days in Berlin before he killed himself. The movie did a fantastic job as showing Hitler as a human being, without ever letting the audience forget that he was a terrible one. I think OSC achieved something similar with Achilles.
I’m not that well versed in OSC’s writing (yet, though I’m working through my library’s collection as fast as I can), but I have just recently finished both the original Ender’s series and the Shadow series. My feeling on that old v. new comparison was that the older books dealt with larger philosophical themes, and made me think and challenge my views more, they had a larger impact on me. However, the later ones dealt with character so well (I loved the characterization of Peter—I was shocked and thrilled when I realized this character who I had hated from my many reading of EG was turning into a character I loved) that I’m almost as attached to them. The books are different, yes, but I don’t think I can say one type is better than the other.
[ April 03, 2005, 03:12 PM: Message edited by: Agnes Bean ]
Posted by LilBee91 (Member # 7475) on :
I've only read the Ender series and the Shadow series, and I like them both about the same. There is a difference in style, but I still love them. Both series have a powerful message, but the Shadow series is more subtle and presented in a very different way. There is no way OSC's style could stay the same after all these years of writing. There are things to love and hate in both series. It all depends on what you like, and the characters you relate to. Good writers can change their writing style depending on their audience and purpose. If they want to write a bedtime story for 3 year olds, it is going to be a totally different style then an autobiography. OSC is a great writer. The characters in his books are different, their beliefs are unique, and his purposs in writing have changed. His style has had to change.
Posted by Michiel (Member # 7649) on :
Why do say that the Shadows series is "more subtle"? In what way?
Posted by LilBee91 (Member # 7475) on :
It just seemed to me that you have to look a little harder in the Shadow series to get the whole meaning. The Ender series seemed more open.
Posted by Michiel (Member # 7649) on :
You really think there is a more hidden meaning in, say, Shadow of the Hegemon than in, say, Xenocide?
Posted by LilBee91 (Member # 7475) on :
No, not more. SotH was a lot of politics and war, and there is only so much depth in that. Xenocide was completely different, not really more or better (depending on what you like), but still great. There were a lot of topics in Xenocide that allowed for great things to be shown/told. OSC was writing for different reasons, with different knowledge, for different people. I like both series for different reasons. His style has changed. It probably has something to do with his kids getting old, but I'm not him so I don't know.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
Xenocide was a theological novel of awakening and transformation. Hegemon, a political novel of intrigue and violence. Really different KINDS of fiction. And Children of the Mind is downright metaphysical and cosmological. It's all part of trying not to write the same book twice.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
What! No hidden meanings? Nothing to deconstruct? Mercy!
Posted by Verai (Member # 7507) on :
Does writing the same book sell?
I doubt many are familiar with the "Skeeve" books but that strikes me as a very slow-evolving series with a never-changing theme. They are getting old.
Posted by Michiel (Member # 7649) on :
I just don't see LilBee's point that Shadows is more subtle, harder to understand that Speaker/Xenocide. I would think it's rather the reverse. But I confess I'd liked the latter better than the former, so maybe it's just that. Although I don't equate a book more complicated with it being better. I am reading Orwell's HOMAGE TO CATALONIA right now. Absolutely great, but I wouldn't call it estoric or even complicated really....
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
.![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Blushing]](graemlins/blushing.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
Lucky for me, I still have a few to go of the ones already written.