Review: Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card

This will be more of a mini-review, since it's been a few months since I read this novel with a few other books read in between.

A bit of background.  This is one of the many sequels to Ender's Game, which is divided into two sagas:

 

Ender's Game Saga:
Ender's Game (1985)
Speaker for the Dead (1986)
Xenocide (1991)
Children of the Mind (1996)
Ender in Exile (2008)
Earth Unaware (To be released July 2012)

Ender's Shadow Saga:
Ender's Shadow (1999)
Shadow of the Hegemon (2001)
Shadow Puppets (2002)
Shadow of the Giant (2005)
Shadows in Flight (2012)
Shadows Alive (To be released)

The story takes place where Shadow of the Giant left off.  Bean leaves his wife Petra and his 'normal' children and goes off into space with the three children that have Anton's Key turned on.  Anton's Key is a genetic defect which gives these children mental capabilities far surpassing their age, and also makes them very tiny physically.  Eventually, their bodies will continue to grow and they will experience giganticism and die in their twenties when their heart can no longer pump blood to their extremities and generally keep up with the oxygen needs for their massive bodies.

The three children and Bean ('The Giant') cruise around space in an effort to keep Bean alive to help them figure out a solution to turn off Anton's Key so the children (dubbed a new species), can survive.  Andrew (named after 'Ender') is the scientist, Carlotta is the ship's operations controller/engineer and Sergeant is the child versed in war.  They eventually meet a bugger ship in space which helps them unlock the Anton Key secret and Bean ends up dying in peace aboard the bugger ship.

To be honest, this book feels a lot like a money grab for Card, and this has been going on for awhile.  The book is a small one at 237 pages and is not the regular book size at 8.5" by 5.5".  The writing is generously spaced as well, though the price is on par of that for a novel and not a novella. 

The story is a must read only for those that have read most or all of the other Ender works by Card.  It fills in a hole left at the end of Shadow of the Giant and gives you a more complete understanding of the overall story.  The humour is typical Card, shown through children with an advanced understanding of life.  Despite the intelligence, the children still act like children.  Their minds are growing and so is their wit, and this wit is present throughout the work.  I would say that Card over does it a bit, going on ad nausea for pages, and it just feels like he's trying to make the work longer.

This is definitely my least favourite of all the Ender works and I would hope that fans get something better in the next two releases for this series. 

I'll leave off with the only quote I wrote down.  I've never found myself looking for a pen when reading Card, though I would assume that the best two books for quotes are Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead.  This is from Shadow's in Flight:

"Love makes you a bad observer - you put the best interpretation on everything.  Hate is as blinding - you assume the worst." 237

Ender in Exile | Orson Scott Card

Excluding "War of Gifts" and "First Meetings", this is really the ninth book in the Ender's Game series. This wraps up the entire series by solving some of the questions that we were plagued with at the end of both series', which include: "Where did Ender find the Hive Queen?" and "What happened to Bean's final embryo?" This book was written to detail what happened to Ender Wiggin, after he destroyed the "buggers" and saving the human race. This story details his adventures in exile.

The tale starts out on the colony ship, which is delivering Ender to "Shakespeare Colony" AKA "Colony I" where he is to become governor. However, the captain Quincy Morgan has other ideas. The captain has become hungry with power, and expects to lead the colony when the ship lands. He also has complete authority and power over Ender's future while on the ship, able to put Wiggin into stasis for the duration of the trip, a state of inactivity caused by opposing equal forces. While in space, time elapses more quickly than on earth, and Ender cannot waste any time in stasis when he needs to focus on getting to know his future colonists and dealing with world politics. After the ship lands and the citizens make it to Shakespeare colony, the rest of the book details the finding of the Hive Queen in addition to traveling to Ganges where the mystery of Bean's embryo is discovered.

I found this novel very dualistic, contrary to nearly all other Card novels. It seemed as though Card was distracted with all the details in the first half of the novel. It was evident that he was trying to make all the pieces fit without contradicting himself, and I think he neglected to focus enough on the story and instead plugged it with such things as a play within the novel on "The Taming of the Shrew," with his own characters playing lead roles. After the arrival at Shakespeare colony, it seemed like Card relaxed a little bit on the details and let the story flow a little more. At this point, the story told itself and couldn't help but get wrapped back up into the Ender universe.

The story is really about how a war veteran deals with the psychological aspects of post-war life. Ender was consumed with guilt for destroying the Bugger race, and he spent most of his time on the ship going through material on their lives. He was obsessed with the question "Why did they let me kill them?" The continued development of Ender Wiggin, not only in actions, but in thought processes is reason enough to read this novel. This novel became a pleasure because of it, and redeemed some of the poorer aspects of the story as a result.

Card repeatedly uses some offbeat humour that comes across as childish, in the novel. I understand his playfulness, but at times, it was uncalled for and not inkeeping with the story. At one point, Ender signed his name "Ended" in a note which was written "in case he died." It was a horrible attempt at humour, and was one of a handful of poorly placed quips. In addition, by the end of the novel I was really getting sick of Card's use of naming places, people and things. In addition to "Shakespeare Colony" and the character "Achilles", which were coined first in another book, he named an Italian family Toscanos - obviously a play on the Italian city of Tuscany. In addition, the town that this family came from was called "Monopoli." Is it just me, or does that come across as a playful but stupid?

In summary, this was ranked just better than "Shadow of the Hegemon" and "Xenocide" but worse than the other novels. While half of the story was boring and tedious, the story picked up after landing at Shakespeare Colony and the growing of Ender's intelligence. Some interesting insights into people and war rounded out the novel nicely and made it a good, if not impressive, read. Three stars.


QUOTATIONS:

"I didn't have the skill to hurt them enough to prevent future attacks, and yet not kill them." 33

"People don't change, Val. Not their fundamental character. Whatever you're going to be as an adult is already visible to someone who really knows you from your birth onward." 60

"A smart boy isn't looking for a girl who is even smarter, he's looking for a girl who will love him." 91

"We aren't here to preserve the local ecology like a museum. We're here to colonize, to suit the world for ourselves." 199

In regards to monetary coins:
"You always give the greatest man the smallest denomination." 307

Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, First Meetings in the Enderverse | Orson Scott Card

Well I completed the last books I had in the Ender saga.

Shadow of the Hegemon was truly forgettable. The book was about life after the Bugger War, and consisted about military strategy on Earth. As always, some interesting dialogue between characters but nothing with the pinash of the first two books, or even Ender's Shadow.

Shadow Puppets was about the relationship between Bean and Petra, two soldiers from Battle school. Book was slightly entertaining, but it was not a blow you away like Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead and Ender's Shadow. Just one of the novels you should read, if you're into the whole series.

First Meetings is a book for nerds. It gives you more background to the characters (ie: how one character would meet another). At first, I was disappointed that the first publication of Ender's Game (as a novella) was in this book, but after reading it, it gave me even more an appreciation for the novel. I think Card changed some characters and some important points. To me, that is useful knowledge. He created the bones first, but it's the flesh that he surrounded it with that morphed the book into a masterpiece.

So, I still have to read Shadow of the Giant, but I don't own it yet so it will take me a little more time to obtain a copy. I'm going back in time a little bit (but still on a war kick) to "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Hemingway. It's time for me to get back to classic literature. Now that I have finally brought my books home, I can make decisions that seem right to me at the time. Reading the book that your mind feels ready for, in my opinion, is always helpful.

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QUOTATIONS
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"Binding yourself to another person and to the children you make together, that's life. And you can't do it if your life is centered on your ambitions. You'll never be happy. It will never be enough, even if you rule the world." -Shadow of the Hegemon, pg. 155.

"We're all tools in somebody's kit. But that doesn't mean we can't make tools out of other people. Or figure out interesting things to use ourselves for." - First Meetings In the Enderverse

Ender's Shadow | Orson Scott Card

The Ender's Shadow experience is now over. What a truly powerful and inspiring novel. I would recommend reading Ender's Game first, but you don't really need to read the rest of the books in the series to enjoy Ender's Shadow. I will talk later on how the concept of a parallel novel inspired me, as I have often thought of the idea on creating a novel based on expectations and perceptions of reality.

With all great novels, I feel lucky to have completed this novel during my lifetime... but sad that is it ultimately over. Since I'm already 5 books through, I'll read the last two but I am not really all that excited about them. I don't think they will compare at all... so I guess I will be expecting something closer to Children of the Mind, or Asimov's Foundation and Earth. Nothing spectacular, but a decent read.

With so many great novels that I still have yet to experience, I find myself scared that I will not get to every one of them. Even if I am able to read 2 books a month, that will only equate to 24 books a year and 240 books in 10 years. Hard to prioritize which ones will get my attention.

I also have a tendency to read the less 'pretty' books that I own, because I don't want to damage them. Also, there is probably a small part of me that looks at them all as if they were the 'green light' in Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby. After I read them, they will be over and I will never experience them the same way again... and the longing to read them will be gone. There is also, arguably, a greater worry in that they will not live up to the asinine expectations that I have of them. I guess that is part of the excitement though... will they live up to the expectations or will they fizzle like the "great" Sound and the Fury.

Time will tell.

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QUOTATION
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"In the military you don't get trusted positions just because of your ability. You also have to attract the notice of superior officers. You have to be liked. You have to fit in with the system. You have to look like what the officers above you think that officers should look like. You have to think in ways that they are comfortable with.

The result was that you ended up with a command structure that was top-heavy with guys who looked good in uniform and talked right and did well enough not to embarrass themselves, while the really good ones quietly did all the serious work and bailed out their superiors and got blamed for errors they had advised against until they eventually got out."

-Ender's Shadow, pg 170

Children of the Mind | Orson Scott Card

Well, I must say that this book is infinitely better than Xenocide. Fresh ideas, fresh character development and less of a scientific approach. It was well worth plugging through Xenocide to get to it.

Still didn't have the pinash that the first two books did. Speaker of the Dead was an amazing concept and Ender's Game had such a nice way of framing the struggles of a boy who was learning who he was in the world and what he was capable of. Children of the Mind focused more on ammending one's view, even if it turns out to be the only thing you felt comfortable that you knew as the truth. You could tell that there was no one master point, like in the first two novels, but it was a much more enjoyable read than the tech-speak of it's predecessor.

Now, on to Ender's Shadow. Will let you know how it turns out.

Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide | Orson Scott Card

So I'm reading the Ender's Game series. First book I read in Venice while the 2nd and 3rd I have read recently.

In Ender's Game, I feel strongly connected to Ender when he played that video game that he never could win. The point is, he always thought he could win. He wanted to control the situation. I seem to enjoy attempting to control the situation against all odds. Maybe the secret is in relinquishing control. Letting your senses guide you. Maybe that is the answer to life... little to no investments and letting your senses take over.

In Speaker for the Dead, the entire concept was fascinating. Having one person speak about the dead's life, not as it was seen to everyone, but how it actually was. Probably one of the reason's I really like the movie, The Aviator so much. Now, were talking Hollywood here, and by no means does it truly compare, but you get my gist. Telling everything, even if it is hurtful. I hope someone that understands me tells everyone who I was when I die. I'm not sure that many people know. Maybe that's what this blog is about.

Xenocide was an interesting book, but not as good as the first two. Poor Orson Scott Card got bogged down in physics too much. He has a wonderful way of presenting both sides of an argument through dialogue, but the physics speak took away a little from the book. He has some amazing ideas, but the book was too much like a mathematical proof. Just do the math man, I don't want you to prove EVERYTHING.

Next book is Children of the Mind. I'm not that excited about it, given Xenocide... but I will push through it so I can get to Ender's Shadow, which I really want to read. Asimov did some beautiful work with his latest add-ons to the Foundation series and I have a feeling Card will too. Both experienced lulls towards the later part of their series. Time will tell.