Orson Scott Card's Ender series

Have you ever had that feeling after you finish a book when you're not sure how to qualify what you've just experienced? Sometimes I finish books and go "Meh, that wasn't bad"; other times it's "That was fun, but nothing great"; and othertimes it was "I loved that!". I didn't feel any of those after finishing "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. Instead, I had this vague feeling that this wasn't a book that you could make a quick judgment about, that I wouldn't understand exactly what I'd read for a while. Maybe a long while. Maybe not until I'd read the book again. It was a strange feeling, and one I hadn't remembered feeling before, unless back when I finished some of my forever-favorite books like "The Lord of the Rings" or "Pride and Prejudice".

Whatever I was feeling, I had really enjoyed the book, so I carried on to the next book in the series, "Speaker for the Dead". And about halfway through that I then realized, my feeling had been right. I didn't just love these books, they had deeply touched me. I had almost forgotten how that felt after reading so many books that I lived in for a few hours and then left to sit on the shelf ever after. These weren't like those books; these were books that didn't let go, that followed me around and whispered their words to me long after I had finished the last page. And when I realized this, I felt a bit of a shiver down my spine.

It wasn't like I wasn't prepared to love these books; they'd been recommended by several people whose opinions I trusted as some of their all-time favorite books, even above such classics that people normally name. I was a bit skeptical, not being a big science fiction fan, but I wasn't going to toss their opinions out just on that. And I'm glad I did, because "Ender's Game" and "Speaker for the Dead" aren't just fluffy fun adventure stories like the stereotype of science fiction says they should be.

Orson Scott Card doesn't make it easy to get into his books—he just thrusts you into his universe with no explanation, and hopes you'll be intrigued enough to continue on until the plot and characters grip you. Maybe it's his test for his readers, to see if they're willing to think and not just be mindlessly entertained. Maybe I just forgot how good writing is not straightforward. But once you've read a few chapters, you're not thinking about the writing style anymore, you're caught up in the lives and adventures of the people he writes about.

One thing that science fiction has going for it as a genre is that its authors are full of imagination without escapism. Fantasy is full of wonder, but sometimes it seems to be an ideal world that the author wishes was our own, with nothing to offer those of us who are stuck on this one. Normal fiction, on the other hand, is often full of crippling realism—flawed people, tragic events, gritty and tough situations—even to the point of being depressing or at least without any hope for anything better. Science fiction can also fall into these categories, but the best of it has a little of both. There's the wonder of discovering new forms of science, with all the hopes it provides for the human race, but mixed with the day-to-day reality of things like human nature and the basic laws of science that rule our lives.

And that's what Orson Scott Card gives. His world isn't any better than ours, his heroes no mythological figures, but he also doesn't say that that's all there is. Even when they make terrible mistakes, his characters long for the ideal, for the good, for the truth, for a better world. And they don't just idly long their days away, they actively strive for it. Sometimes they fail, and sometimes the result are brutal and painful, but sometimes they succeed and it's beautiful, and Card seems to be saying to us the reader that we can too. All we need to do is keep trying.

I thought about giving a summary of these two books, but decided against it. Words don't do plots like these justice, especially because these books are so definitely not plot driven. They're theme driven and character driven, and even the elaborate nature of the plot doesn't overshadow that. I can't describe what I loved about these books by giving my favorite scenes, but more how the whole thing made me feel. And sometimes, these books had me hurt, made my heart feel sore because of the painful truth being expressed. But other times, there was piercing beauty and quiet inspiration, and my heart swelled, and these books fulfilled some need that I couldn't quite express with words.

I don't know if my experience was personal, but I hope it wasn't. These books reminded me why reading is not just for entertainment, and I strongly recommend them to others.

(Edit: Since writing this review I also finished the third book in the series, Xenocide, and I have to say: I'm still thoroughly hooked to this series. I just started rereading Ender's Game, and I'm finding that it's better than I gave it credit for the first time around.)