With Sons Of The Oak, I feel jarred sometimes. With Olympus, Simmons actaully employs present tense in some sections, which might be fine, but it doesn't live up to Illium [as evidenced by a very unnecessary and disgusting X-rated scene between Zeus and Hera which almost made me throw the book out, but that's neither here nor there].

Is there some sort of movement to bring 3PO back? If so, why?

I like Omni although not generally the" "If Bill only knew what was around the corner . . ." from of it. I like having an understanding of the important player's motivations which can be done in Omni.

I know, I know. I just recently read a book by an author whose prior works I've really enjoyed. Got a good jolt of "wow, she's really let herself go, hasn't she?" So I'm not saying that it's never a valid comment about a writer who's still writing. But Card has yet to write anything that affects me in that way.

I guess I'm still reeling with disapointment over Shadow Of The Giant and Crystal City. I read the free opening chapters to Empire and found it even more of a disapointment (speaking of which, the opening is omniscient).

Nothing to do with political beliefs at all, it's just some of his latest works just don't seem to measure up to his earlier ones. Shadow of the Giant was too dialog heavy, incorportated too many POV characters I didn't care about, wasn't cohesive, didn't really focus on Bean whom I did care about. Crystal City, from what I remember, didn't really go anywhere, the same struggle I had with Jordan's Winter's Heart. The first chapters of Empire seemed dialog intensive also, reading like a political sermon disguised as a story, instead of a story that might deliver any insightful moral lessons.

Roger Zelazny said toward the end of his career that some of his later stories were not always up to par and he was aware that sometimes they sold just because of his name. Sadly, he died before his time. Hopefully, Card has a number of years left and its just a temporary blip that he'll recover from.

What I was saying about politics is that it is a belief system and no matter what a persons politics are, it can often short circuit a person's clear reasoning faculities, even in otherwise intelligent folks. Sometimes the emotion-based belief is blind, causing a person not to hear all sides, to sterotype, make broad generalizations, and to continue even contradictory views whatever the evidence is to the contrary.

Card understood that. In Characters and Viewpoint, he talked about getting to know all sides, not painting the antagonist overly simplistic strokes. For instance, he brought up the plot to Three Mile Island. Again, in his How To Write SF&F he brought up the example of analyzing why folks in a certain town followed an evil religious leader. I think this sort of analysis can extend not only in made up characters, but real ones as well. Characters and Viewpoint contains life lessons.

I intend to buy a copy when I see one. (I get to Books-a-Million most every week, and I usually get to Barnes & Noble every two weeks.) I liked Card's Alvin Maker series very much, along with a lot of his early short stories, but I haven't much liked what I've read of the Ender series. On that basis alone, it seems to be worth parting with some money to take a look at it.

At the same time, Card has gained a lot of experience with finding and befriending the kind of people that can realistically engage in the kinds of conversations that he depicts in his later works. I actually find most of those conversations frustrating because they're below the intellectual level I demand in a conversation, even if I have to supply most of it myself

I can understand how you find the later works to be less accommodating, but it isn't because Card has lost his touch or anything. It's simply that he no longer cares to include you in his audience. He's said as much in a number of interviews, some of which are linked from this site if you care to peruse them.