Ender's Game was one of the first sci-fi novels I read -- and enjoyed -- as an adult. My teenage memories of the genre were of the worst pulp fiction; I read everything I could get my hands on, and one of my uncles was a sci-fi fan. Needless to say, he wasn't reading fine lit.

A friend chose Ender for book club (she'd put up with a lot of Oprah picks up till then), and most of the members who read it loved it. I was the only one to devour the whole series, though, and the Shadow ones that followed.

But the sci-fi exploration was just a blip, for the most part. Still wasn't my style.

Since then, I've stepped down (in some ways) from being a book snob and read all kinds of genres. There's as much crap labeled "literature" as there is any other kind of fiction.

Unfortunately, Memory of Earth doesn't deserve any mark of distinction. I picked it (and a bunch of other Card novels) up for 50 cents at a library book sale, figuring paperbacks were handy to haul on vacation. But I had to force myself to finish this one when I returned, and I'm not likely to look for the rest of the series.

The three core factors -- characters, world, plot -- are boring and predictable. The only thing I found vaguely interesting was the idea that a group of humans had left Earth and created a new civilization, and the reason that intrigued me is because I'm watching Battlestar Gallactica for the first time. (See what I mean about letting down my guard?)

I have read at least one other non-Ender book by Card, and it's the fantasy novel Enchantment. It's a very different read than Ender, but it's a far better one than this.