Reading the Author Challenge Wrap-UP

This challenge was hosted by Incurable Logophilia. My author was Orson Scott Card.

Why this particular challenge? Well, I love reading challenges in general, and this one had flexibility. Reading three books by one author? Something that I could hardly resist. Plus, I'd just created the Cardathon Challenge and thought I could overlap books rather nicely and perhaps spread the word about how great Orson Scott Card is!

Which author and why? I love Orson Scott Card. In fact, I love, love, love Orson Scott Card. But finding time to reread his books can be problematic. You see, I'm supposed to be reviewing children's books and young adult books. And I needed my favorite author to be part of a challenge so I'd have a valid excuse. But that's saying more about me and not enough about him. I love Orson Scott Card because his books are awesome, it's true. But there is more to it than that. His characters are just so incredibly well drawn that they're "real." They definitely become your friends. And it's impossible to forget them. You want to visit them again and again and again.

Which books did you read? I read Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus; Lost Boys; Empire and Speaker for the Dead.

Which would you recommend for someone trying this author for the first time?

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Ender's Shadow would be a nice start as well. For those not wanting to tackle a series Enchantment would be a good choice or Pastwatch. And I just love The Worthing Saga.
How would you characterize the writer or the books? Practically perfect in every way... Or if that's too Mary Poppins for you...amazing or awesome...I suppose would suffice. I love the fact that they're so character-focused, but they don't lack plot and action either. He has so many different styles, writes in different genres, but all are good...and most are great. I definitely have no problem saying he's my favorite and my best.

Pastwatch

While nothing can displace Ender's Game from being my favorite and best Orson Scott Card novel, I love, love, love Pastwatch. I'm not quite sure how I can convey that. But I'll do my best.

It's set in the future. I would guess several hundred years in the future. Humans on Earth have become technologically advanced, but they're still paying for the mistakes of the past--most notably the environmental mistakes of the past. One of the technologies available is the ability to watch past events fold out before your eyes on the big screen. In the early stages, this technology could only watch vast regions--note climate changes and social changes--the building of communities and sometimes their collapses. But as this technology is developed further, it becomes possible to watch history in greater detail, minute detail. Scientists, historians, researchers (whatever you want to call them) can do studies on communities, societies, or individuals.

What's the point of watching the past? To learn. To understand. To answer impossible questions.

Pastwatch has multiple narrators--each one with a special interest, a special research area, together they are trying to answer some BIG questions.

How is Christopher Columbus involved? Well, he's one of our narrators for one thing. But secondly, he becomes the subject of interest for most of our other narrators. It is HIS life that is being dissected and held up for study. What our researchers learn is that at some point in time, future scientists, interfered or manipulated the past that turned Christopher Columbus' interest to sailing west. Their quest to figure out how and why of this manipulation will lead them on a journey with massive consequences. For they're debating whether or not they should do something along the same lines...

Semi-Apocalyptic fiction. Alternate histories. Time Travel.

Pastwatch is exciting. While the characters are well developed, they aren't as memorable for me as those in the Ender books. But that could be because I've read Ender's Game about a dozen times and Pastwatch only twice. Overall, I say this is a must-read. Those with an interest in history will find it fascinating. As will those with a love for science fiction.

Lost Boys

I read Lost Boys for the R.I.P. II Challenge, the Cardathon Challenge which I'm hosting, and the Read the Author Challenge. I had avoided it for years quite honestly because it is not really my kind of book. The premise is simple, what if a boy's "imaginary" friends weren't imaginary. What if they were ghosts. What if a boy's changed behavior wasn't the result of a cross-country move, what if their new house was the burial ground for kidnapped and murdered children. What if he was the only one who could see them, hear them, talk with them. What if no one believed your story. Meet Stevie. A young boy--seven and eight--who is the 'sensitive' one in his family. Thought to be odd by his classmates, Steve's insight isn't as imaginary as folks think. The oldest child--with two younger siblings and another on the way--the year of 1983 is a living nightmare. His father, devastated by the economic recession gets a job as a writer of computer manuals. He was a game programmer. A rather successful one. The mother is lost in taking care of her children and busying herself with church work. Neither is quite aware of the dangers that await them in this small town in North Carolina.

It's an uncomfortable read that never gets any easier. Why? It paints the horrors of humanity--the depravity of man--in a thoroughly realistic and haunting way. Though there is 'one' main threat, the sickness and cruelty of the human race surround this family. The coworker who is a bit too insistent on babysitting. The teacher whose cruelty is just unspeakable. The neighbor who is quite possibly certifiably crazy yet off his medication. And then there is the serial killer/child molester. This seemingly "normal" and "safe" neighborhood is anything but. And that is what makes Lost Boys so scary. The fact that even though these are cautious parents who want only the best for their children, in some ways they are helpless to protect them. It is what you don't know that may come back to haunt you when all is said and done.

Speaker for the Dead

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card.

Speaker for the Dead is the sequel to Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. But in many ways, it is even more instrumental than Ender's Game. You see, Ender's Game started out as a story--a short story. Orson Scott Card was working on ideas for a new novel, and the basic premise of Speaker for the Dead came to him. Although, at the time the Speaker was a Singer. He thought and worked and thought and worked. And then it came to him, what if the Speaker was Ender! What if he used one of his *old* characters, and gave him a new story. There was one problem. The story needed to be fleshed out before this new novel could work. And it needed more "fleshing" than just a simple prologue or chapter could do. What he needed was to turn his original story into a novel all its own. This is when the characters (we know and love) came into existence. This is when Andrew/Ender was "born."

Speaker for the Dead is a sequel, but it didn't begin life that way--and you don't have to read it that way, either. It was my intention all along for Speaker to be able to stand alone, for it to make sense whether you have read Ender's Game or not. Indeed, in my mind this was the "real" book; if I hadn't been trying to write Speaker for the Dead back in 1983, there would never have been a novel version of Ender's Game at all.
How did Speaker for the Dead come to be? As with all my stories, this one began with more than one idea. The concept of a "speaker for the dead" arose from my experiences with death and funerals. I have written of this at greater length elsewhere; suffice it to say that I grew dissatisfied with the way that we use our funerals to revise the life of the dead, to give the dead a story so different from their actual life that, in effect, we kill them all over again. No, that is too strong. Let me just say that we erase them, we edit them, we make them into a person much easier to live with than the person who actually lived.
I rejected that idea. . . No, to understand who a person really was, what his or her life really meant, the speaker for the dead would have to explain their self-story--what they meant to do, what they actually did, what they regretted, what they rejoiced in. That's the story that we never know, the story that we never can know--and yet, at the time of death, it's the only story truly worth telling.

Speaker for the Dead is the story of a planet, a colony, in need. Lusitania. Home of colonists, Catholic colonists who speak Portuguese and Stark, and home of the "Piggies", pequeninos, "Little Ones." It has been three thousand years since the close of Ender's Game. Humans have supposedly learned much since the xenocide. They have come to regret the destruction of the Hive Queen and the "buggers" and have a new policy when dealing with alien species. This policy plays an important role in Speaker for the Dead. The pequeninos are different--very different from the human colonists. There is a fence separating the two. Only xenologists--one or two at a time--could visit the pequeninos. Only for a few hours each day. And there were strict guidelines as to how much they could ask and tell. Pipo and Libo are the xenologists. One master, one apprentice. Novinha is the (young) xenobiologist. The three work together closely, but when tragedy strikes--Pipo's murdered by the Piggies--lives are destroyed and things are set into motion that can't be undone.

Andrew Wiggin is THE Speaker for the Dead, though only a few know it. (There are many who have that title of "speaker" but only one is the original. The author of The Hive Queen and the Hegemon.) When he receives the call to 'speak' the death of Pipo, he begins his journey to Lusitania...little knowing that it will forever change his life and determine his destiny.

There are many things I loved about Speaker. I love how Ender has matured into Andrew. I loved seeing how much he's grown...changed. He is wise. But his wisdom doesn't make him less human, it makes him more human. I love how this novel is about taking broken things, messy things, ugly things--and making them whole, making sense of the chaos, making them beautiful. In some ways, it is more philosophical than Ender's Game. Again, it is the characters that make Speaker for the Dead such an outstanding novel. His characters aren't perfect--far from it--but they're real.

Sickness and healing are in every heart. Death and deliverance are in every hand. (240)

Of all of the humans, he is the one who will understand us. (347)

When you really know someone, you can't hate them. (370)

Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart. (370)