Intergalactic Medicine Show by Orson Scott Card

Actually this collection is edited by someone else, but it's the product of one of Scott's writing workshops, so that name fades easily into obscurity, and you'll have no problem finding the book if you search for the title, which is, I believe, also the title of Scott's online publication. Y'all know, if you've been around here a while, how much I love Scott's writing, both fiction and non, and any writers whose stories he is thrilled about are sure to be good.


If you're looking for a few newer authors to add to your watchlist, Card can pick 'em.


Card also publishes a couple of new stories in Ender's universe, and in one of the afterwords he penned a paragraph that had me nodding and chuckling at the same time.



"I had to force myself to keep Bonzo's family from getting too strange. Still, in the real world, everyone's family is strange, in one way or another. On average, families are pretty much alike, but in detail, every family does tings that make people from outside the family shake their heads and wonder how any of the children emerged with their sanity."

Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston

I've always loved Card's works, thought lately it seems as if he's merely milking the Ender franchise for all it's worth. Can't blame him, really. It's made him a very commercially successful author, but it seems that he really has no other worthwhile stories to tell any more - it's vaguely reminiscent of all of the books of apocrypha that Christopher Tolkien put out using his father's notes.

None of the stories after Speaker for the Dead have really had that tense, or intense, gripping story that we found with Ender's Game, unfortunately. I thought perhaps that Earth Unaware, subtitled, "The First Formic War" would be more exciting than what he's produced lately, but it fell flat, too. For me, anyway.

The story takes place, for the most part, out in the Kuiper belt of the solar system, where a ship full of Spanish space miners, El Cavador, is the first to notice the approach of a massive alien spacecraft. Our prime protagonist is Victor Delgado, a precocious (are you seeing a repeated pattern here at all, folks?) teenager who is a whiz with mechanical and electrical gadgets. Victor makes the mistake of falling in love (tho he doesn't notice that he has) with his cousin on the ship. The miners practice a very strict exogamy, so she is transferred to a ship manned by Italians as soon as the ship's council becomes aware of the potential problem. (Are we stealing from Heinlein now, Scott? Read Citizen of the Galaxy, folks)

Some scout ships of the Formicans approach the Italian ships some days later, and end up destroying them all, leaving few survivors. This is probably the most intense portion of the book, as the crew of El Cavador conducts a massive search and rescue operation, and Victor hopes to find his love interest alive.

The whole scenario is also more complicated by the presence of a corporate mining concern's research vessel, the Makharu, in the area. They've invented what they're calling a glaser - gravity laser - which is designed to vaporize asteroids to make it easier to extract metals. The first tests are a success, but they decide to hijack El Cavador's claim to a larger rock to perform more testing, ending in the death of one of the Spanish ship's crew members, and setting up a possible confrontation between the captain of the ship, Lem and the independent miners, who could now blackmail him or ruin his father's company by lawsuit, if they didn't have  bigger fish...er, aliens...to fry.

The whole story has a very juvenile centered tone. Card has always written pretty much G-rated novels. It's understandable to have Victor indulging in teen angst, but when 30 plus year old Lem does it, it's not really all that attractive. Looks like this one is setting up for a number of sequels - in fact the afterward spells it out. I'm not sure Card has done a good job of making me care about what happens to his new characters and the Earth, incidentally.

Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card

Card has, for many years, been one of those authors whose novels I'm unable to put down until finished, once I start. This novel, part of the endless Ender's Game saga, wasn't quite that enthralling, but it managed to wrap up one dangling plot thread from the tale of his old sidekick in Battle School, Bean (Julian Delphiki). Bean was a genetically engineered human, designed by a scientist to have extremely high intelligence, but an unfortunate side effect of the process was that it turned off the genetic switch regulating growth, and Bean is destined to continue growing, becoming a giant whose body will not survive past his mid twenties.

In an earlier book, Bean and Petra (also from Battle School) fell in love, married, and had children. Three of the children, Andrew, Carlotta and Cincinattus, were afflicted with Anton's syndrome, and Bean takes the children away from Earth with him on a starship, hoping to take advantage of the time dilation effect to allow researchers to work on a cure. They are well into the voyage at the beginning of this tale.

They discover an Earth-like planet in a distant solar system, at the same time as a ship of the Hive Queens goes into orbit around it. Everyone believes that all of the Hive Queens (save the one in its cocoon that Ender, Speaker for the Dead, is still dragging around the galaxy with him) are dead, and the Formic threat destroyed. Bean and the children decide to attempt contacting the aliens, and there's some interesting stuff about what they discover on board, as to the fate of the Formics.

Not his best work, but amusing, and it wraps up a sub plot nicely.

The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card

Over the years, I've come to expect certain things when I open up a new novel by Orson Scott Card. The main thing is that I better just block out the time to read the book straight through to the finish. It's a bad idea to start a new Card novel at bedtime, because I can count on getting no sleep till it's done. Unfortunately, this latest book wasn't up to those standards, I'm afraid.

The main story line in The Lost Gate is about Danny North, a twelve year old child in a family of mages who live on a compound in Virginia. They are the descendents of powerful magic users who once were considered to be gods, in this case the Norse ones, like Loki and Thor. Ever since the trickster, Loki, locked up the gate between MiddleGard and Westilia, their powers have waned, and they live concealed from ordinary humans, or drowthers.

Danny, alone amongst his cousins, doesn't have any talent for magic, and is held in contempt by most of his clan. It turns out after a bit that he's actually a gatemage, who has the potential to restore the gates that Loki stole. The other magic families on the planet are part of an agreement that since gatemages are too powerful, they will be put to death as soon as they are discovered, and when the Greeks come by for an inspection, Danny is caught using small gates to snoop on the adults, and flees for his life.

Like Oliver Twist or Pinocchio, he meets up with some unsavory companions when he is shoplifting some clothes at a WalMart, and travels to Washington DC to begin a life of crime - just like congresscritters. The house where he eventually takes refuge turns out to be a place "baited" to bring in Orphans, the half breeds with magical talent that the Families do not claim. The house's owner, Stone, finds Danny a family of Orphans to live and train with, giving him the first truly loving environment he's ever really known.

There's a secondary story line that is taking place on the old home of the "gods", Westilia. Loss of the gates there has also caused the magic to dwindle. A boy/man whose body is trapped in a tree for centuries is released by some kindly strangers, though he suffers from a partial amnesia. He wanders into the midst of a political battle between mage kingdoms, and ends up playing a key role in restoring one of them to power again.

This novel is pretty much targeted at the young adult market. I just found it extremely derivative and not as captivating as Card's usual output. I never sympathized nor empathized with any of the characters, particularly, and what growth and development took place in their hearts and lives was far too facile. Pick it up at the library if you must, but I wouldn't pay hardcover prices for this one.

Short Takes

(6/25/09) Only amazing thing about my day is that I'm about 200 pages into the latest Anita Blake novel, Skin Trade, and she hasn't had sex with anyone yet. I'm stunned.

(7/2/09) Finished reading Brad Thor's The Last Patriot - quite tasty!

(7/8/09) Finished Card's latest Ender book, Ender in Exile. Great stuff.

Short Takes

2/8/07 Picked up a new book, Jennifer Morgue, by Charles Stross, author of the Hidden Family series. It's a really amusing read. He's got a lovely twisted wit. Some of the things he says about corporate customs, computer geekiness, etc. are just hilarious. There's a short story about the same protagonist in the back of the book that's got a really fun take on MUDs and RPGs.

2/9/07 Read Card's new novel, Empire, yesterday. Pretty much up to his usual standards, but the ending seemed a little lame.

Hidden Empire, by Orson Scott Card

If we've ever talked about Card's books, you know that whenever I get my hands on a new title, I pretty much have to set aside a dedicated block of time to read it. Anything Card writes inspires me to power on to the finish, so I can get into big trouble starting one of his books just before bedtime. Once again, he's remained true to form.

I've been trying to figure out what has inspired Card on one aspect of his recent writings; his tendency to include extremely precocious, articulate children in his stories. Think of nearly the entire cast of his Ender's story arc, for example. He's done the same here with the children of Reuben and Cecily Malich. If you've ever raised children, you know that sometime during their teenage years, they suddenly become infinitely smarter than their parents. This condition generally lasts until they move out, get jobs and have children of their own, after which point their parents' IQs increase dramatically. Was Card just taking an assumption to its amusing conclusion? "What if kids actually did become smarter than their parents?" Or did Card end up raising some truly precocious and improbably logical children, thus providing fodder for his books?

Hidden Empire is, of course, the sequel to Empire, in which we saw the rise to power of Averell Torrent, a president of the USA who may or may not have the desire and ability to become a caesar in fact, if not in name, over a world empire ruled by America. The novel centers around an ebola-like plague that originates in Nigeria, which has the potential to wipe out 1/3 to 1/2 of the Earth's population, if it goes unchecked. Torrent's administration gets word of the disease very quickly, and moves boldly to quarantine the entire continent of Africa, as there seems to be no way to stop the spread of the disease past the Nigerian borders.

The quarantine is generally successful, though it is acknowledged that it won't succeed in the long haul, and the disease will eventually spread around the globe. However, a large contingent of ordinary citizens from the United States, moved by compassion, demand to be allowed to go to Africa to care for the victims of the disease. Through their actions, serendipitously (if one can call anything deliberately written in a novel such), much is learned about how to make the disease more survivable, and that fact gives us hope that the plague will not destroy civilization as we know it.

At the beginning of each chapter is what is purported to be an excerpt from a speech by President Torrent. Don't skip these, they are really interesting politico-social commentaries straight from the brain of Card himself. Whether or not he personally believes any of it is a moot point; they're all good grist for the grinder.

I'm looking forward to the next installment in this series with great anticipation.