Miss Eliza's Book Review - Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game

 

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Published by: Starscape
Publication Date: 1985
Format: Paperback, 324 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Ender Wiggin is the shame of his family. He is a Third. On an Earth where the population is still reeling countless years later from the last alien "Bugger" invasion, children are limited to two... unless there is a government mandate or the parents live outside the laws of decency. Ender was government mandated. In order to save humanity, the government has decided that children who are gifted should be trained to be their saviours. Ender's siblings, Peter and Valentine, both showed potential as being the most gifted children ever to be monitored for training. Yet Peter's violence and Valentine's empathy ultimately doomed them to a life on Earth. Still, the potential was so great that Ender Wiggin was "commissioned."

Ender has spent years being monitored to see if he would fulfil the potential of his siblings. Despite appearances to the contrary, the government decides that Ender is indeed their ideal savior. Yet, in order to achieve this end result, the rules will be broken. Battle School has been run in a space station orbiting Earth and training the youths in a very set curriculum of schoolwork and mock battles. Divided into armies and platoons, the students fight each other in a safe environment to hone their skills that will be used against the Buggers. When Ender arrives, all the rules are changed. By isolating Ender and promoting him beyond his age group, they hope to create the greatest military mind the universe has ever seen. He is a tactical genius, thinking outside the box and is able to embrace concepts that other students can't even understand on the most rudimentary level.

Soon Ender is promoted out of Battle School before even reaching his teens and sent out to the far reaches of the galaxy to Command School, where he is trained by the greatest military mind ever, before him that is. Put in a simulator, Ender is virtually learning how to control a fleet and fellow commanders who must answer to him. Yet, deep in his mind he starts to question if the Buggers are the real threat. While back on Earth, his siblings might pose a far greater threat because they have realized something that Ender has only guessed at. They are spurned geniuses, and they have the world at their feet.

A space age Lord of the Flies, a tale of justified violence and uncompromising brutality. This are the criticisms that are often written about this book. Yet... this was not what bothered me. Growing up when I have, the world around me has desensitized me to violence. Not to say that I didn't consider this book violent, I just considered that to be the least of it's flaws. I have never read a book by Orson Scott Card previously, nor will I ever again. While many believe this book to be the pinnacle of science fiction, I personally was left, not only scratching my head, but with the taste of bile in my mouth.

If not for the fact that this was for my book club I would not have finished it. If Card isn't spewing hatred, he is plodding along with his mind numbingly boring plot. This book is very much a battle movie, in that, you can see Michael Bay loving getting to set children into combat with lots of gore and death. This did not make for a good book. Moving past the fact that it is badly written, you really have to give me this, it's clunky, awkward and the little "omniscient narrations" before each chapter where laughable, the language and hatred that spilled out of the book just shocked me. The racism and bigotry floored me. I don't believe in censorship or taking away free speech. But the fact that there are children out there reading this book and thinking this language is acceptable, chills me to the marrow of my bones. From homophobic slurs against a little boy Shen, who comes to be called worm because of his effeminate walk, to racial anti-Semitic language used against Ender's first army leader because he is Jewish, and not only that, having Rose himself "self deprecatingly" joke about it himself shows even more that it's acceptable to children who don't know better! The book just compounds hatred and bile into this big mess that I wanted to fling out the window.

For many years I have tried to come to grips with the fact you sometimes have to separate the artist from their art. A beautiful painting might have been painted by a horrible bigot. A classic of literature might have been written by a pervert, ie, the Lewis Carroll/J.M. Barrie conundrum. Yet this is impossible when the views and opinions of the author are so a part of the text that they are inescapable. After a few chapters I realized that Orson Scott Card must be one of the biggest homophobes the world has seen. Therefore I did some goodreads trawling. Going past all my friends who mysterious loved this book (they are going to have a lot to answer for at book club!) I went to those reviews who gave the book a star. Or as I call these reviewers, "my people." There a found a link to an online article where he railed against homosexuality saying that homosexuals are allowed to marry, so long as they marry the opposite sex, not where their heart lies. Not that Card believes that homosexuals have hearts... because "the dark secret of homosexual society -- the one that dares not speak its name -- is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally." WHAT!?!

Card, you can believe what you want to believe, just like anyone who is reading my blog can, just, don't do it around me. I'm not trying to preach here or anything. I was raised to believe in love. But to spew this bile and not be called out on it. To be lauded with awards for this hate spewing work? You have an amazing mind, you where able to envision how technology would evolve. In the eighties, you saw the rise of the Internet, the rise of bloggers like me and the power we would have. You saw children working on desks that are quite literally our tablets, such as the iPad. You pre-saged all this amazing technology, yet your belief system lives in the dark ages. I'm calling you out on it. Hopefully one day people will realize that your book is nothing more than a platform for your hate.

*If you would care to read the full article referenced above, it can be found here. I will warn you though that it has many inflammatory opinions, none of which I hold with.

Miss Eliza's Book Review - M.J. Rose's The Reincarnationist

   

The Reincarnationist by M.J. Rose
Published by: Mira
Publication Date: January 1st, 2007
Format: Paperback, 449 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Josh Ryder has been having weird spells ever since he survived a terrorist attack in Rome. He keeps slipping into the past, into what could only, logically, be his past lives. There is too much detail for any doubt to exist. He has sought out help from The Phoenix Foundation, who specialize in helping children understand their dreams which aren't really dreams but past life regressions. Malachai and his aunt take Josh on because he has such clear visions, one of them involving their building. A discovery in Rome sends Josh back there with Malachai. A Professor Rudolfo and his assistant Gabriella have uncovered an unknown tomb. Malachai and Josh hope that not only will this discovery help Josh, but perhaps will shed light on the mysterious memory stones, stones said to allow you to see all your past lives.

Josh is so haunted by his past that in a daze he wanders for miles till he stumbles on Professor Rudolfo's site hours before their meeting. There he finds Sabina... or the well preserved corpse of Sabina, his true love back when he was Julius, all those hundreds of years ago. Tragedy strikes the tomb again and Rudolfo is killed. Josh is arrested as the primary suspect but soon is released. While his time in Italy is at an end, the memory of Sabina still stirs him. He will find the answer one way or another. Back in New York he connects with Rudolfo's assistant Gabriella. Josh feels drawn to her, was she Sabina in a past life? Soon their knowledge of the memory stones lead to the kidnapping of Gabriella's daughter Quinn. If Josh and Gabriella can't solve the mystery that has baffled people for centuries, Quinn might die.

Part Indiana Jones, but more Da Vinci Code without any kind of narrative drive, this book was a struggle to get through. If I hadn't thrown out my back and been immobile, I don't think I would have finished it. Besides having the hardest title of a book to ever say, I dare you, try to say it out loud, this book left too many lose ends and me saying "well, that happened." While I don't look favorably on books like The Da Vinci Code, at least Dan Brown kept the urgency, kept the plot moving. For something so dire, for a race against the clock, the pace of the book was quite languid. Not to mention, the sub plot with Rachel and her Uncle Alex being so secondary until the end was pointless, hence eliminating them from the synopsis. Use them throughout OR don't introduce them till you need them. They felt like they where thrown on stage three acts before they where needed. I also felt that Josh's jumps into the past a little too cliche. "He smelt Sandalwood and Jasmine" now he gets a giant erection and can only dream of the dead girl. I kid you not, the biggest sex scene in this book, and there are a few, are between Josh, aka Julius, and the memory of Sabina, while in the shower.

If the story had remained in Italy, perhaps there would have been a better chance to connect with the narrative. But once they left Italy, I really couldn't care less. Then the fact she brings out the kidnapping trope... ug, just no. I will give her credit that in the last page she did give a little bit of a game changer, which was nice, but I knew who the bad guy was from the beginning, and all your running around and adding plots on plots and more and more stupid characters will not take away from the obviousness of everything. Again, a book not finished by the majority of my book club... but sub par writing with one too many cliches will do that, and, if the writer can't be bothered to finish the story and tie up the loose ends, the memory stones, etc, then why should a reader be bothered with finishing it? Also, nothing pisses me off more than an obvious lack of understanding something. M.J. Rose obviously doesn't understand that a yard is equal to three feet. He was so close, only 3 yards away... dood, that's not that close if you're in a tunnel and trying to get out. Also, if you are interested in something good about reincarnation, rent Dead Again and be done with it, don't read this book.

Miss Eliza's Book Review - Cheryl Strayed's Wild

 

Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Published by: Knopf
Publication Date: March 20th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 315 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Cheryl Strayed had a tough yet somewhat idyllic upbringing in Minnesota. Her two siblings and her and their mom and her stepfather and a little plot of land to call their own in the far north. In Cheryl's final semester of school her mother got Cancer and died. Cheryl's life spun wildly out of control. She not only lost her mother, but her connection to her siblings, her step-father and finally her husband divorced her. A combination of grief, promiscuity and drugs will do that. Cheryl latched onto this idea of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail through California to Oregon as some sort of penance. Once she did this her life would be ready to get on track. She could maybe finish college, kick heroin, leave behind the countless men and the abortion she had and start anew. The PCT was going to be her salvation. A hard trek over dangerous terrain, where bears, foxes, wolves and snow would all be encountered. She thought she was ready for it, but the trail challenged her in ways she didn't expect.

Firstly she packed way too much, her backpack being affectionately called monster. Her shoes where to small and she wasn't keeping the pace she had expected too. Soon she had to result to detours to avoid all the areas of the Trail that where snowed in. She went through many hardships of not having enough money on her detours, having not expected to encounter them. But on the trail and at the rest stops, she became friends with other hikers in the close knit community of the PCT. All the while, as her feet marked mile after mile, she thought about all that had happened to get her here. The husband she let go, her mother's horse that she had to put down, how she was headed nowhere but the next mile and the next mile. Yet all would be worth it once she reached the Bridge of the Gods and her journey was over, minus most of her toenails.

I am not a non-fiction reader. If I read non-fiction it has most likely been for school or because it was some funny celebrity memoir. This wasn't either. This was a book club pick, thankfully picked before Oprah, I will not go into this now, but me and Oprah, we have issues. Wild was interesting in that I hate Cheryl, I really truly hate her, yet I was compelled to keep reading. She is not a nice person, at least that's what I feel like having read the book, and, I'm sorry, but if you're not likable in your autobiography, then you're probably not likable. She has too many self esteem issues. Not only is she promiscuous, be she truly believes that every man she encounters wants her. So much of her journey seems to be getting herself away from the world of temptation, that when she does hook up at what was originally going to be her final destination, the "romance" of the moment is lost in the, "you dumb bitch, not again" that was coming from my mouth. Also, as to her heroin addiction... um, heroin isn't that easy to kick. I'm injecting today, tomorrow I'll be on the trail and not feel any signs of withdrawal. Ok Cheryl, sure.

Also, this is a book about her hike around these beautiful panoramas and vistas, a journey where she clearly states she has a camera... why are there no pictures? Not a one! Is it because all the men reading it would want her? Now just to start piling on the things that pissed me off, I should mention that there where people in my book club who hated her so much they didn't bother to finish the book. Let's start with Cheryl's last name. When I read that her last name was "Strayed" I was like, that has got to be some lame pretentious made up name... yes and no. She made it up, but it's legally hers. What kind of writer is so pretentious as to pick strayed as their name? Gah, just, gah. Then, why this book now? I mean, this happened when I was in high school. The whole book felt dated. The references to OJ Simpson and Jerry Garcia... did you really need money so bad that you finally wrote this book? Also, her upbringing I think made it easier to adjust to trail life, she didn't have running water for years in Minnesota, so she doesn't really cover her upbringing as being trail compatible. The ending felt rushed. I mean, total in depth detail all the way to the Oregon border and then Oregon was over, woosh.

Yet none of this, not one single thing made me hate the book as to what she did with some of her mothers ashes, even the toenails didn't do it. She found a nice big bone chip and ate it! That's right, she ate her mother. This wasn't a metaphor, this was gross reality. All I kept thinking was that her thinking of "now my mother will always be with me" was so flawed, because, now, you are going to shit out your mother. Some of your mother will be down a pipe somewhere after you fucked someone or shot up, and your mother will be there. I was so revolted that if I hadn't decided I hated her already, this would have pushed me over the edge, it brought the book down a full star as it stands. Just icky! This whole book could have been better served as a series of short stories where her mother eating tendencies where left out.

A final note to Knopf. An istock picture ISN'T A COVER! All you did was cut out the other boot, with a bad clipping path I might add if you look closely at the cover. Sure, these look like her description of her boots, but couldn't you have taken your own picture? Or how about a picture of Cheryl on the PCT as the cover? How about any kind of originality of any kind please!?!

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