| Product: |
Ender Wiggins Series - Orson S. Card in general |
| Date: |
11/05/01 (80 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: It's about Ender's world
Disadvantages: It doesn't have Ender
This is the second book in a new companion series to Orson Scott Card’s Ender series. The books take place sometime in the future, following a repulsed invasion by an alien species known as the Buggers. Little is known of them save that they are the enemy. To combat this menace, Earth joins together as never before under a Hegemony, establishing and International Fleet to combat the problem. To further this aim they create the Battle School. An elite institution which turns the most intelligent kids on Earth into soldiers.
This book takes place after the final battle against the Buggers. Under the command of children military geniuses, led by the legendary Ender Wiggin, the Buggers have been slain. Ender has been sent away from Earth with his sister to avoid his being seized by the governments on Earth for their own purposes. Now that the Bugger threat has retreated, the nations of Earth have returned to old grievances.
In the previous book we were given greater insight into one of the minor characters, Bean, who turns out is more intelligent than Ender himself! (Oh! I know, it seems crazy – but it’s Card’s universe). Bean was a product of a genetic experiment in manipulating intelligence. He escaped and was found on the streets of Rotterdam, escaping from a fellow street child named Achilles. From there he was sent to the Battle School, as was Achilles. Bean forces a confession of psychopathic murder out of Achilles who is sent packing back to Earth, and a secure prison.
Attempting to read this as a stand-alone work will be very hard, if not impossible. You really need to go back to the beginning and start with Ender’s Game.
Now on to the actual Book itself! Ender is gone, but his loyal soldiers have been returned home. They are still children, but hailed as heroes, and coveted by their nations. Soon they are rounded up and kidnapped, all save Bean. Bean soon discovers Achilles is behind the kidnapp
ing. We are then thrown into a world of battle strategy. Achilles begins to shape the world to his own desires, seeking power by manipulating various governments. At the same time Bean seeks to foil him, and save his fellow Battle School colleagues. To this he must turn to Ender’s worst enemy… his brother Peter, future Hegemon of Earth, but for now only a teenage college boy writing under the pseudonym of Locke.
The strategies and plots that Card creates are interesting, and anyone interested in International relations will follow them with interest as he speculates on what would happen IF. Does the book work? Well yes. Of course it can’t compare to the subtle and haunting beauty of Ender’s Game, but he does explore the conflict between realising that these children are geniuses, but are at the same time only children. The second guessing by all the characters does seem a little contrived (after all, no matter how intelligent people are, or how similarly trained, they cannot predict with such certainty). Still the boom is very enjoyable!
I’m not sure why this book works. It is epic in proportion, and you know that the story is leading to the eventual creation of a world-wide hegemony by Peter, but it seems impossible. This book moves a good way forward in making it seem possible. The characters are oddly distant, but he manages to blunt that by making some of the supporting cast more human (the Wiggin parents, Sister Carlotta). The strategies developed are interesting, and give some insight into the Battle School. I would like to see more trauma though. No matter how bright these children are, the abrupt change to civilian life should be almost traumatising for them. Instead they either shrug into it without any problem, or aren’t allowed to deal with it as they are thrust into their native militaries.
I liked it. Card’s style is easy and understandable, his characters likeable. The end is a bit an
ti-climatic, but this is only part of an on-going saga. I look forward to the next book. I can’t rate it too highly though. It’s enjoyable, but not special, maybe once the series is concluded a better picture can be grasped. Less epic than the original ‘Ender’ series, and far more down to nitty gritty earthly politics.
Summary:
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