Monday, May 5, 2008

The enemy's gate is down...

Earlier today I was thinking about the book Ender's Game again. Written by Orson Scott Card, this is most likely one of the best science fiction novels ever written. I'm completely serious when I say that, no exaggerating. Like Harry Potter, it was written for children but it stands the test of time for adult readers, providing a compelling story and fascinating characters. What makes it pass that particular test, by the way, is that Card doesn't dumb down his writing just because his intended audience isn't out of school yet. It's a future alternate history type story--but there are also space ships, so it combines many of my favorite parts of science fiction.

While Ender's Game stands alone as an insanely brilliant work of fiction--Card also followed it up with several more novels in the series, as well as a secondary series starting from the book Ender's Shadow which also relates the events of Ender's Game but from another character's point of view, which really gives you a completely different story within the same universe. Pure genius.

So, imagine my surprise when I pulled up my daily dose of SyFy Portal to find this interesting article regarding the genre distinctions between science fiction and fantasy. There's Dan Compora, talking about how truly awesome Ender's Game is. I think the universe is telling me I need to pull this one out again and give it another read. I guess that means I need to finally get down to getting my books unpacked from when I moved way back in September...

Also, Orson Scott Card is a huge Firefly fan. Sweet.

So...I think we could all use a little Card in our life, go check it out.

Until next time,
C

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