posted
I like Ender more because for some reason, I picture him as being this really hot dude...where as Bean remains a child and then a preteen. Besides, Bean will die and Ender lives at least 3000 years...Oh! and with that awsome side-kick Jane out to destroy Starways...*Adrenaline rush*
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
i personally enjoy the bean series better, maybe it seems like there is more political science or something, but i personally don't highly favor one or the other. Bean, however, i think is a very interesting character.
Bean's series is a long, political conflict that does have the first book significantly different, but the richness and variety is not quite as much as Ender's series.
My favourite book was Speaker For The Dead, because it was the most sophisticated (all Children Of The Mind lovers, I know about the complexity. But I seem to sense less sophistication and less connection to Ender himself; moreover, it's COTM + Xenocide together).
Bean's series, while sophisticated, is quite dry. I didn't like the somewhat brief references to Alai and Suryawong. Nothing even similar to what was dedicated to Petra or Peter. In SFTD, anyone older than about 7 (meaning everyone BUT Grego and Quara; this, of course, excludes Olhado exclusively) had an important part, even though references were also quite brief.
But we haven't yet read SOTG; how can we speak fully?
posted
Hmm. . . Bean or Ender. Tough choice. I'd have to say the Shadow series over the Ender quartet. Though I did like Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead I began to like Ender less and less in Xenocide and hated him in Children of the Mind. Mainly because he became a boring old adult, and what was with his loyalty to Novinha? While I like the adolescent romantic young hero aspect of the Bean series because he never had to grow up to become a bland uninteresting adult like Ender who was waaay too devoted to his bitchy wife . Plus the military and political aspects of the Shadow series were more intersting than the Ender series' . . . philosiphy? Anyway that's me trying to cash in my 2 cents.
Posts: 93 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Those who claim that Bean and Ender are similar, or that Bean is a literary and almost worthless replicate of Ender, "don't know zits from zeroes" (ES, Bean to Bonzo's supporters). The whole point, in my opinion, is that Bean and Ender are opposites.
e.g. Ender's Shadow, VICTOR - Guesswork (chpt. 21): "So Ender, the nice middle-class American boy, kills the kid who wants to beat him up in the bathroom, and Bean, the hoodlum street kid, turns a serial killer to the enforcemt". That's number one. Number two: "Ender was good at building teams, but he beat Bonzo hand to hand, one on one. And then Bean, aloner who had almost no friends after a year in school, he beats Achilles be assembling a team to be his defense and his witnesses."
Moreover, Ender lives (relatively, of course) 3000 years, whilst Bean lives only to the age of 20 (to the most). However, Ender lived an empty life, without love or happiness, and Bean lived a short life with the people he loved.
So, in a way, Ender ends up as Bean, and Bean becomes Ender's beginning.
I wonder if OSC thought so when he wrote the Shadow series.
Posts: 803 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
I prefer the first two in Ender's, and like least the last two. The Bean books are inbetween.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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The shadow books are in a league with EG, they are written similarly, and read about the same. I loved these because they gave a quick look into the person, but you felt as if you really knew them, they were beautifully written.
The other three books of the EG series are absolutly my favorite books of all time. Probably because they dwell into the deeper issues, and possibly because I agree with the decisions they make. One of the main thing that drove me to SftD, Xeno, and CotM is this line in the first paragraph in the intro to SftD
quote:Indeed, in my mind this was the "real" book; if i hadn't have been trying to write Speaker for the Dead back in 1983, there would never have been a novel of Ender's Game at all.
If I remember correctly, he goes on to say that he wrote Ender's Game into a novel so that he could tell the story in SftD. Since i see SftD, Xeno, and CotM as a series, I don't see how you could like some but not the other's, they are written as closely in style as EG is to the shadow series (so far) as SftD is written to Xeno and CotM.
I want to say that I am not trying to degrade EG and the shadow series, there were excellent books. I believe, though, that there is more of a story to The Speaker trilogy than the rest.
I still want to see if and how Card ties the EG(including SftD, Xeno, and CotM) and ES series together. no matter what I cannot wait to see how it ends....
Edit: Quimby, What part of spawning clones of your brother and sister (who are technically you), being in three different places at once and savinganother world, helping another abtain their freedom from congress, and saving a biological entity traped in a computer is boring? I don't see how that is boring, not as fast paced maybe, but boring?
I know I'm "yelling" (since it's hard to yell through a computer) at you for your opinion, but im doing this in hopes that you may give them a second chance.
[ December 11, 2004, 07:57 PM: Message edited by: Peter ]
Posts: 283 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Actually I didn't think the Ender series was boring at all. I loved it and it's characters straight trough until the end of CotM. I just thought that Ender himself was boring and even then I only meant most of Xenocide and all of CotM. I just thought in Xenocide he was overshadowed by some of the other characters and in CotM he just laid around and died (for which I blame Novinha).
Posts: 93 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I have to say, i've been reading Ender's game over and over for the past 10 years and i love it, but the speaker/xenocide/children triology after it aren't a natural follow on for me... I like them, but they're a more intense read and i still get bored reading about Qing-jao it really is a whole different story...jane/Ender/Miro are far more interesting...
if i want to keep reading after Ender's i move to the shadow series...at first I hated how Bean was smarter and second guessed Ender cos it killed his genius a little, but i love the game of RISK which the whole series was kinda inspired by so i find the politics stuff in shadow pretty fun...
Posts: 46 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
I like the Shadow series better, probably because I am younger and I'm into the romance thing between Petra and Bean. Also, when he was on the streets, he showed how smart he was at the beginning, and the lifestyle of the gangs. It just immediately caught my attention and drew me in. But I do like the Ender's series, I'm not sure if I can explain it.The last book I read was Speaker of the Dead, which was awesome. But between Ender and Bean, it'd have to be Bean.
Posts: 24 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
I like the Speaker trilogy more but I prefer Ender's Shadow to Ender's game. I actually refused to read it for a while because I thought it wasn't going to be that good. What a pleasant surprise that was. I still want to know what is up with the Descoladores so I can't wait to see how he ties it all together.
Posts: 17 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I am currently reading shadow of the hegemon, so I cant say right now which series i like better, buy when it comes to enders game vs. enders shadow i liked enders shadow better, I felt the charater of bean was better developed. I like the Speaker, Xenocide, Children books most of all.
Posts: 52 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
I personally believe Enders Game is the best book ever written and Enders Shadow running close behind it. With that in mind I would say both characters are as equally intriguing to me but on different levels. I havent known Bean as an adult but I have known Ender as one. The Shadow books as a complete set present to me a better flow and much more fun read. The move quickly and I have read every single one on the very day I bought it. The Ender series was a bit more slow moving for me. Speaker for the Dead was a completely different book than Enders Game, yet phenomenal in its own right. Xenocide exhausted me but Children of the Mind left me unfulfilled. I would have loved to have had more books with Ender in his teenage years. I feel like I've missed out on a great part of his life and its for that reason I feel more intimate with Bean. As if I know him better. But if I'm forced to break it down I would agree with the post earlier which put Game in the top spot, Beans series second, and then the Speaker trilogy last. But if thats not an option, I have to side with Bean. Just because I know him better. :-)
Posts: 16 | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote: I wanted to know what happened to the descoladores. [Frown]
Nick
So Did I! Maybe he'll write another series of books for that. It left me unsatisfied, which wasn't good considering it is the end of the series. And what about the rest of the lives of little Peter and Val?? I want to read about it. Not imagine it. I want there to be an ending. Maybe its just the little girl inside of me wanting the "and they lived happily ever after." lol
I'm not much for politics, but I still love the Bean series. I guess that since I don't really pay much attention to real politics (so of course I wouldn't understand fictional politics, even if it is based off of real politics), it makes it more interesting for me. More surprises I suppose. Bean tries to do so much with such little time and it makes my heart go out to him. To spend so much time as a child then spike up suddenly, with Petra with him through it all. I'm such a romatic...
quote: in a way, Ender ends up as Bean, and Bean becomes Ender's beginning.
-Beanny
I never thought of it that way, made similar connections, but not quite that poetic. I like it.
I really have not reached a decision on which series I like more than the other. Both are brilliantly written and takes me to places I never would conceive of myself. When given the opportunity to choose, I choose not to choose at all. I love them both for what they are and only hope there is so much more to come. OSCAA - Orson Scott Card Addicts Anonymous... Posts: 11 | Registered: Dec 2004
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I prefer Bean. Something about his intellect mixed with the fact that he is human, even if he is a genetically enhanced human. He's very serious but can still laugh and tell jokes. He knows when to step in and when to watch. He knows how to manipulate, but doesn't just do it for fun. For example, he forces Graff's hand when it comes to the deadline and he traps Achilles but he doesn't use his power as commander of Rabbit army to belittle any soldier the way most commanders, even Ender, did. Nor did he take control in the final battle even when he was given the chance. His superior intellect is also fun to follow along with. One of my favorite lines from the Ender's Shadow book is "Now Graff would have to second guess every decision he made, wondering how much he was influenced by the fact that this kid really pissed him off" Also the dialogues with Bean are always great.
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. Plus the military and political aspects of the Shadow series were more intersting than the Ender series' . . . philosiphy? Anyway that's me trying to cash in my 2 cents.
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