Themes from Ender's Game I miss in the later books...

[buckfan328]

I will say straight up front that I have read Ender's Game plus all of the books from the Shadow Series but that I have not read the Speaker series, just so that particular bias of mine is clear.

I absolutely loved Ender's Game, it is definitely near the top of my personal favorite/great books of all time. I got nearly the same level of enjoyment out of Ender's Shadow, though I don't think I could fairly rate it so highly since it is so dependent on the plot of Ender's Game. I enjoyed the shadow series, they were fun reads but mostly in my own mind I can't shake the feeling that the following books detract from Ender's Game, I prefer to think of Ender's Game/Shadow as standalone books. As for the speaker series, I find the whole 3000+ year time jump to be such a put off that I have never managed to convince myself that reading them won't leave me with a worse feeling about the originals as the Shadow books did. Now, not having read them I am not implying they are bad books, just that I am more of a near-future science fiction type of reader and they don't really interest me. In analyzing my sentiments, I have run across several sort of plot devices that really resonate with me in the earlier books that I miss in the later books.

1.) The child protagonist. Ender and Bean and the other battle schoolers are kids who get wrapped up in extraordinary events. Its an adventure story where even the ordinary goings on at the school become momentous events to the reader because they are momentous events to the kids (after all the game really doesn't matter). I miss this in the later books where the battleschoolers are basically glorified adults in children's bodies.

2.) Humanity's desperate struggle for survival against an overpowering enemy. The immanent threat of the buggers makes the whole story absolutely epic. All of the goals and objectives of the later books (Graff's ColMin project, even the wars for earth in the Shadow series) sort of pale in comparison to the crusade against the buggers.

3.) The jeesh. In the first books we get introduced to this group of kids, unlikely friends in an unlikely situation who we come to know and love. The rest of the series is the gradual and rather tragic destruction of the jeesh by death, separation and geopolitical conflict.

4.) The war. While OSC's description of the fighting and the technology of fighting in Ender's game is not extensive, it is there. As a reader, I got a sense of sci fi, where technological developments (like the ansible and Dr. Device) matter to the course of the war. Fleets of spaceships maneuvering in space, its compelling. The earthside fighting in the Shadow series is very flat. It seems most sides have about the same technology as each other and it seems at least very similar to what is available in the present. War on earth hasn't changed much. While the geopolitical maneuvering is extensive, the actual fighting comes across sort of as watching a giant game of risk. Roll the dice, remove the pieces, roll the dice again...

Now to be fair, I think where OSC obviously excels in his writing is in examination of humanity. The theme runs strongly throughout all the books and I do very much enjoy this aspect of his writing. I also admit that a lot of the examination that he does would not be possible without the stuff that I don't like. After all, groups of friends do tragically break up in life (the jeesh). People do change in ways that is disappointing (Vlad, Alai). People die tragically, love is thwarted (Bean, Petra). The struggle for meaning and purpose is in everyone and many don't find it (Bean, Peter). Sometimes great people are damaged by events (Ender). In so many ways the books really do accurately reflect the good the bad and the ugly of human experience.

The problem is, at the end I just come of sort of melancholy. I sometimes wish that I could just be left to enjoy the moment of humanity's triumph over the buggers tempered by the tragedy of Ender's breakdown without having the knowledge of all the sadness and pain that awaits those who participated. I would rather like that to be the end of the series than a midway point. So you can see I am most interested in prequels or stories concurrent to Ender's Game. I am definitely an optimist and a happy ending-liker so maybe other people feel the opposite. What do you think?

[Janus%TheDoorman]

I agree generally with what you've said here, but I'd like to point out that Ender's Game was written because OSC wanted a backstory for the Speaker Series, and so its function in the Enderverse is rather quite different than the Shadow, or the Speaker series. It sets the backdrop for the entire universe.

[greenbeans16]

I kind of agree with you on some things. I'm in love with the shadow series, and they are my favorite part of the enderverse. I didn't like the speaker series as much (though I still loved them!), but I think to really get the full effect out of any of the books, you need to read them all. There are so many references, connections and fore shadowing though out each novel that you won't be able to appreciate without doing that. (This is probably why it's enjoyable to read the books more than once)