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| The only thing worse than Ender's Game by FABIO 10/09/2009, 1:12pm PDT | ||||
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Mischief Maker wrote: Is the sequels. I know you like to mention that the Dune sequels are the worst books ever, but I'm assuming that's just because you haven't read Speaker for the Dead or Xenocide. As bad as Ender's Game was, at least it had a couple of mildly interesting parts and an actual story. Speaker for the Dead was like reading an anthropology textbook, only not as educational. I never bothered with Xenocide since SftD was one of the most tedious books I've read, but I looked up a summary and apparently the following things happen: - All computers in the galaxy form a secret collective intelligence persona, befriends Ender because he's super special. - Ender brings Bugger queen back to life on planet inhabited by pygmies, the gayest aliens ever. - Mean intolerant humans send fleet to destroy planet because every living thing on it carries microbes that will completely eradicate any other biosphere they come into contact with. How ignorant! - Ender, his sister, and the AI form some sort of portal to heaven, resurrect their dead brother Peter as a child, transforms themselves back into children, and all the aliens and humans get along under their new super special children god powers. But yeah, Ender's Game was pretty embarrassing to read. There has never been a more blatant self-insertion into a published work. A trio of children suffering from a staggering case of natural genius at everything (his 10 year old sister is on par with the top three professors on the planet!), despite being raised by idiot parents at an average school. "I'm such a genius! Why can't anyone appreciate that? Why do they MAKE me hurt them? I'll show them...with my toy soldiers!" So they whisk him off to little boy paradise battle school, whose brilliant training program involves years of teaching kids to play laser tag, and only a couple months on the actual fleet controls they'll be using in the war. Ender continues his siblings' Matt Damon streak by instantly and effortlessly being the best at everything around school. He hacks computers! He beats everyone at simulations his second time playing. Not a single military mind in the world could come up with this stuff! Maybe Scott was ahead of his time. All the battle school stuff reminded me of a typical online RTS. You have people who have done nothing but play defensive games against the computer, relying on its predictable AI to leisurely arrange their troops. Then Ender comes along with the zerg rush and crushes the other side before it's even ready. Not fair! You're supposed to wait until I have carriers! Fuck u rusher! *ragequit* Now everyone knows that you need zealots by the 2 minute mark and the kids hustle. I guess there weren't any Koreans in Card's universe, or he assumed that absolute optimum strategies would never emerge in a hyper competitive environment. And when they did, super genius Ender would be the first and only to come up with it. But the other kids are so mean! Why do they keep forcing me to ram their bone ridge into their brain? Better defend myself by lubing up in the shower and convincing everyone to get naked. I miss my sister, she's the only girl my age that appreciates my Speaking of which, back on Earth, Ender's brother and sister plot world revolution...by posting to Usenet! Of course these 10 year old Will Huntings are automatically the greatest philosophers history has ever seen and within a couple years split the entire world into two camps of thought before being declared president of everything. So the actual space war breaks out. Luckily everything learned at laser tag is 100% applicable to controlling fleets of space ships (Ender has no clue what capabilities the enemy ships will have, another influence on Gratuitous Space Battles), right down to the unorthodox A-Team tactic of welding stuff onto an armored van to drive into the bad guys' base. After the war is won, Ender must rely on the jock marines to guard him. Boo hoo we were really wrong to wipe them out. I better bring them all back to life! (*hack Mass Effect writer jots down*) |
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