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The seperation of people into fluid groups of 'good' and 'bad.' (Emelaki/Nafai; raman/varelse)
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men who do well in terms of monetary means but think they stand alone like a stone, and without love (Ender, Quentin Fears, Don Lark)
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I just read Wyrms for the first time yesterday. I noticed some similarity between it and Enders Game because in both an older alien species is destroyed... but not utterly, the memory of them is still there.
But if in the story it comes down to the familiar vs. the foreign genetic material the foreign is what gets destroyed. There is a lot more agonizing over it in xenocide but a lot of the same ideas are in Wyrms. I don't know if it is truly the "terrible choice" idea or not though.
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What about the whole really smart computer programs thing? (EG, Homecoming, that's all that I've read that I've noticed it in) Does two things constitute a pattern?
Posts: 981 | Registered: Aug 2003
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So why is it, then, that OSC denies working with Theme in his interviews? It seems there are obviously themes he works with whether or not he "intends" them to be there. And I wonder if he ever looks at his work and purposely tries to write something different, outside of the theme, just for practice/fun?
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I think that the Underlying Theme in Cards books is the LDS conception of the afterlife. After all it draws on the fact that if our souls are Auias(sp?) then they are just as eternal as any God could be, so if we gain sufficient wisdom and power (Jane, Alvin) we get to be a little God and create a universe in our image.
This is the Heresy that throws the rest of the religious and Christian world into fits over the Mormons. However it is something that has become more and more mainstream in acceptance.
It is a doctrine of heaven that makes sense. After all for generations it has been popular to speak of creating ones own hell, why not ones own heaven?
I think this concept bridges the gap between fantasy and sience fiction through the gateway of the uncertainty principle and the fact that the observer acts on the observed. No author since Roger Zealazney has done it as well.
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