[locke]

its unbelievably superb. it really opened my eyes to the moral toxicity that Scott ennables the reader to happily go along with, it's just and incredibly clear detailing of the flattering ways that reader is made complicit in and agreeable to genocide and murder.

[Wilshire]

I hope that all of this isn't stripped from the characters in the movie-to-be. It would be disappointing, though not unexpected, if they stripped all the ambiguity and turned it into a humans-conquer-evil action flick.

[Madness]

its unbelievably superb. it really opened my eyes to the moral toxicity that Scott ennables the reader to happily go along with, it's just and incredibly clear detailing of the flattering ways that reader is made complicit in and agreeable to genocide and murder.

I skimmed the essay yesterday - I will have to read it more fully and respond. Interesting commentary, lockesnow .

[locke]

This might be my favorite part, and relevant to how Kellhus is so similar to Ender

I do not make the allusion to Christ casually.  The figure of Christ, like that of Hitler, comes up briefly in Ender’s Game, and the associations it calls up are revealing.  When Ender’s friend Alai points out that his habitual salute to Ender, “salaam,” means “peace be unto you”, an image immediately leaps into Ender’s mind.  He recalls his mother quoting Jesus from the gospels.

“’Think not that I am come to send peace on earth.  I came not to send peace, but a sword.’ Ender had pictured his mother piercing Peter the Terrible with a bloody rapier, and the words had stayed in his mind along with the image.” (p. 187)

The word “peace” calls to Ender’s mind not the Prince of Peace, not the Jesus of turning the other cheek, not the Jesus who stayed his apostle’s hand when the apostle attacked the soldier who came to take Jesus in the garden. “Peace be unto you” evokes in Ender an image of murderous revenge against his personal tormenter:  the savior as righteous killer. 

[Wilshire]

The main differences being that Ender is a kid and Kellhus is a man. Its so much easier to dismiss the mistakes of a child.

[mrganondorf]

Loved EG!  Got to read it to my daughter recently and it was wonderful fun that way too.  I think Card captured so much of pure childhood fantasy in the zero g war game. 

I need to give Speaker for the Dead another try--I really didn't like it the first time around, it seemed unattractively politically correct to me years ago--something like, there are no true faults between people, just misunderstandings.  But I'm definitely going to read it again, maybe just my biases at the time.

[Wilshire]

Yeah I think EG is a great book for younger readers. SftD maybe not as much, since the main character is all grown up. The later books ('Shadow' series: Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant) is more along the lines of EG, though the original series (Enders Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind) was superior.

[SilentRoamer]

Yeah I loved most of the Ender stuff. Only thing that bugged me really was how Achilles also ended up being a genius and he was just some street brat as well.

SftD for me was great but the original EG is awesome - I remember reading the G scenes and having such a vivid idea.

Did anyone see the films? What did they think of it? Lots of little homages to the book if you were looking.

[Wilshire]

As far as film adaptions of books go, it was pretty good. Obviously it wasn't perfect, but its not like it had a SW or LOTR budget to work with. The cast of children actors did a pretty good job, and it was probably difficult all around to shoot the movie with hat many kids running around. That said, Harrison Ford was not impressive.

I really enjoyed the movie, but it was far better for those of us who read the books first. Too much was happening behind the scenes for the movie to be fully appreciated read the books.

[SilentRoamer]

Yeah exactly. There were some really weird differences. Uh What! Major Anderson is black you say? Also a woman? The fact that Rackham was not a reveal felt a bit off but I can see why they changed that. The Giant Game seemed really insignificant in the film - wish we saw the giant eat him a few times.

I thought the battle room scenes were superbly done though and i was totally geeked out.

I wish it would have made money so we could have gotten a sequel but I dont see SftD adapting well to film.

[mrganondorf]

I didn't like the movie--the games did come to life for me like they did with the book--but I don't know if any movie could fit my mind's eye version.