Christine Amsden's Blog: Christine Amsden Author Blog, page 21

Book Review: Shadows in Flight

After reading Shadow of the Giant for the second time, I once again checked to see if there was or would ever be a conclusion to the story of Bean, the boy I’d fallen in love with in Ender’s Shadow. It DOES exist, came out two years ago as a matter of fact, but it was really hard to find! There is no mention of Shadows in Flight in the one place I would most expect to see it — the author’s own web page! Only persistent digging on the Internet led me to this book, and to the hint that there might be one more to tie the Shadow series together with the rest of the Ender series.

As for Shadows in Flight… To be perfectly honest, I felt pretty neutral about this story. I still want to read the sequel! (So Mr. Card, please write it and then mention it on your website so I’ll know you did. ) But it just didn’t feel like much happened in this book. At several points along the way, I wondered why it couldn’t have been a short story. All that really happens is that Bean and his brilliant six-year-olds find and explore an alien colony ship. We learn some new things about the Hive Queen that I’m not sure matter (although they might end up mattering in a sequel), we get to know each of Bean’s children, and there’s quite a bit of nostalgia — memories of Ender, battle school, Petra, etc. Actually, now that I think about it, parts of this book felt like that flashback episode that happens in almost every long-standing TV show. You know the one I mean — on some pretext all the characters start thinking back to… cut to a scene from a previous episode.

The ending was anti-climactic, but it did give me some closure, which was what I had been missing when I set out to look for this book in the first place. So mission accomplished. Like I said in the beginning, my feelings on this are neutral.

TV Review: Lost Girl Pilot

This show is not instantly hooky, but I do plan to press on.

Lost Girl has topped my recommendations list at several sites since it first aired three years ago. As a matter of fact I tried the first ten minutes or so of the show a year back, but I was in a judgmental mood that day and dropped it because it had been billed as a show about a girl who suddenly realized she was a succubus. Well, in the first ten minutes of the show Bo kills a guy in an elevator (who had just slipped a drug into a girl’s drink and was planning to assault her), and she definitely knew what she was doing by sucking his life force.

Tonight I decided I should be more open minded and give the show a real chance. And she doesn’t know she’s a succubus (although really, the Internet could have told her that’s what it meant when she sucked the life force out of men while kissing them or during… well…). She also doesn’t know she’s a fae, or that there is a world of fae out there she has never imagined.

The show really needs a better write-up.

I watched two episodes tonight, and am willing to continue giving it a chance. I’ll let you know later if I made the right choice or not, but for now I wanted to weigh in on my initial feelings. At this point I see potential, but there is a lot that is remaining annoyingly unsaid. I would also love to have more background on the main character, Bo, to understand her better. (Not to mention her clepto sidekick, whose name I can’t even recall at the moment.) I think these deficiencies are getting between me and an immediate emotional investment. But like I said, I see potential and plan to give it a few more episodes.

Note: This show is not at all suitable for children or teens. It is for adult viewing only. (I mean relaly, it’s about a succubus. )

Movie Review: Impostor

Spencer Olham is arrested because Major Hathaway believes he is a cyborg posing as a human, set to explode when he gets close to the chancellor. The human race has been at war with the Alpha Centauri for decades, and there is a climate of fear many are willing to kill first, and ask questions later. The cyborg replica is perfect, after all. It even has Spencer’s memories. So the fact that he knows he’s a human means nothing. His protests mean nothing.

This was a fast-paced sci-fi action thriller that had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. There were details I could nitpick, but I willing suspended disbelief for this exciting story with such an ominous question at its center: Is Spencer human? He himself begins to doubt as time goes by.

I thought I had the ending figured out and I was *almost* right. But it did surprise me.

This movie was chilling, thought-provoking, and fun to watch. An easy 4/5 stars and a fun evening watch. If you have Netflix streaming, just queue it up and click play!

Rereading Xenocide and Children of the Mind

I hope you don’t mind my decision to combine my review of the last two books in the Ender saga into one. These two books make a complete story, and I find I cannot fully separate the details of one from the other in my mind.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m rereading this series after almost fifteen years. I reread Ender’s Game itself one other time, but I did not return to the sequels because I vaguely remembered feeling dissatisfied with them. In truth, I didn’t remember the stories well at all, and upon rereading it’s not hard to understand why. These books are weird. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but there’s no question that in an attempt to expose us to true alieness (something most scifi books shy away from with their endless humanoid species), the author succeeded in making these books feel a little alien themselves.

I’ve heard grumbling about these books for years in the scifi circles I follow. It is common for people to say that Speaker for the Dead is good, but Xenocide and Children of the Mind were not. I myself have echoed these sentiments, but upon further examination and reflection, I want to take it back and dare to disagree with the general consensus (among my circle at least) regarding the merits of these books.

I didn’t dislike them.

That sounds lukewarm, I’m sure, but it’s a fair place to start. Over the past several years I have gone unabashedly to a place where I primarily pursue reading as a matter of enjoyment — and writing too, for what that’s worth. Which isn’t to say that I don’t like deeper meanings underneath, but on the surface I’ve been immersed in fun stories. Xenocide and Children of the Mind (in case it isn’t patently obvious from the titles) are not fun stories. They are weird stories, mired in philosophy and religion and deep questions about the source of the soul and the meaning of life.

I was not all that old when I first read these stories, barely 20, and I suspect that part of my new view of them has to do with the living of an additional fifteen or so years of life. A lot of my worldview has changed in that time, and I’ve found that many of the books I enjoyed then do not measure up when I read them again. I was actually despairing that my years had brought on nothing but pessimism, but now I don’t think so. I just feel differently. I am not now precisely the same person I was then (one of the philosophical ideas discussed in passing in the book). There are some books that really do work better at different ages (in each of us, I’m sure, the “correct” ages shift).

I can’t tell you how I’d rate this book on a scale of one to five. I supposed my question would have to be, “Five what?” I’ve discussed this with other readers from time to time — the need for a better system of rating. This book isn’t supposed to be a pleasure or leave you filled with joy. It’s meant to make you uncomfortable and ch

allenge your assumptions. And if you don’t agree with all of it, then at least you’re thinking.

The original Ender’s Game is the sort of book I can see myself revisiting again and again, maybe every decade or so. I don’t feel the same way about these sequels, which take us, in the wake of Ender’s Game, into Ender’s guilt. Much of these last two volumes, in particular, is a story of atonement. It is far less action oriented, far more sober, and it doesn’t have a completely happy ending (or a completely miserable one).

I gave Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow

as a birthday gift to a 13-year-old. I do not recommend these sequels for teens, though. The books are not inappropriate, they’re just grown up books. Go into them knowing that, and with an open mind, and you may find it to be a worthwhile experience

.

Movie Review: Catching Fire

I’ve done a couple of movie reviews in the past, but I have recently decided to add movie and TV reviews as a regular part of my blog. The reason I hesitated is that I almost never get a chance to see a movie in the theater. But then I thought, how many people are there like me out there? Just thumbing through Netflix on a Friday night, trying to figure out what might be good? Most of what I share with you will probably be available for Netflix instant viewing, or otherwise available on the Internet.

Ironically, after saying all that, I’m going to kick this new segment off with a movie I recently got a chance to watch in the theater.

I reviewed the book version of Catching Fire a few years ago, and I had some pretty harsh things to say about it. There were things I didn’t like about the original Hunger Games novel, but overall I found it to be a compelling psychological story with a neat twist. Catching Fire did not work for me as a follow-up, and Mockingjay failed utterly. So I honestly wasn’t sure I would ever see Catching Fire in the theater or out of it. But then one Sunday I went to the movies with a friend, and five options later I said, “… and if nothing else, we could go see Catching Fire.”

Well, the movie was just plain awesome. I was stunned. Flummoxed. Confuzzled. How could I enjoy a movie so much when it was based on a book I didn’t care for at all?

But the answer hit me about halfway through — the movie fixed the #1 problem with the book. The point of view. Katniss is a terrible point of view character. She may be the eye of the storm, but she takes no actions, makes no decisions, and ultimately everything is done to her rather than by her. She is not the key decision maker. Which makes her an odd choice for a first-person narrator. Also, the present tense style in all three books felt very passive. And to top it all off, I never felt connected to her as a character.

All that changed in the movie! First of all, I finally have the answer to the question people are always asking me about my own books: “Who would play Cassie Scot in a movie version of the books?” Jennifer Lawrence! That gal is a terrific, emotive actress. She made me feel things about Katniss I never could feel in the book. She showed me a scared, uncertain, lonely character doing her best to survive.

But it was more than that, because as I mentioned Katniss wasn’t the primary decision maker in this story, which made the point of view tricky in the book. In the movie, seeing her from the outside, and also getting looks into the private headquarters of the president, I saw forces in action around her. I saw that this was a story about a world on the bring of rebellion, fueled by the symbol they had made out of Katniss. But ultimately, she was an excuse. The president didn’t get that, but the government’s evil deeds had finally caught up with them.

I am actually looking forward to Monkingjay now, a book I gave a generous 2 stars to.

Rereading Speaker for the Dead

This is the sequel to Ender’s Game, though in my meandering rereading pattern, I went with the parallel shadow series first. The reason for this is two-fold: First, I just connected more with Bean than with Ender. Second, I dimly recalled not caring for these sequels. Unlike the original Ender’s Game novel, which I have now read three times, I am only on my second reading of its sequels. And also unlike Ender’s Game, I can’t say that I would ever reread them again.

Ender is all grown up now, and three thousand years from home thanks to the time dilating effects of relativistic light speed travel. He’s set himself the lifelong penance of bringing back the race he destroyed in a xenocide. He goes from world to world, never stopping long, all in hopes of finding a place for the last egg to hatch and bring her species back to life.

He is also a speaker for the dead, someone who speaks the truth of a person’s life. In that role, he is called to an obscure colony world which also happens to be the only other place in the universe where — so far — intelligent life has developed.

I won’t go into plot details. Let me just reflect upon my feelings as I read this book. It’s good. It’s interesting. The piggies are nicely alien, well imagined. For those who just read Ender’s Game and are considering reading the sequel, fair warning: This is a very different book. It’s more sober and philosophical. More grown up, perhaps.

My biggest reservation about this book is a personal one of minimal importance, yet it bugged me. Ender ends up falling in love with a woman and getting married, and I don’t like her at all. He sees himself within her because she is guilt-ridden, but I felt that her guilt was a selfish one, whereas his was not. There’s a romantic in me that wanted better for him.

Still, this was a small part of the plot and the rest asks many of the questions science fiction has long tried to resolve: What is sentience? What is humanity? What are human capable of (individually and as a group)? And when do we have the right to kill?

The best part of this book was the creativity of the piggies and how very alien they really were. Anthropologists trying to study them didn’t even know the right questions to ask because the answers were so outside their experience.

I do recommend this to those who want to continue reader the Ender saga, but I must say — I know that a lot of kids end up reading Ender’s Game (either in school or independently). And while there’s nothing inappropriate in this book, this is not written for youths. Which isn’t to say don’t read it, just realize that this isn’t like Ender’s Game, and it’s targeted at adults.

Secrets and Lies Audiobook Release

Secrets and Lies (Cassie Scot #2) is now an audiobook! I once again teamed up with Melissa Reizian Frank in order to give Cassie a consistent, engaging voice. I am very excited to be bringing this series to you in every format currently available in the market today — you can read it on any ereader, buy a print version to hold in your hands, or listen to it on your mp3 player.

 

Buy now 

Barnes and Noble 
Amazon
Audible

Rereading Shadow of the Giant

And finally… except not so finally… I have reread Shadow of the Giant. I say “not so finally” because I recently learned that there IS another book in this series! It came out last year while I was looking the other way. With that in mind, much of my former reservations about this book are put to rest. The first time I read this book, I didn’t believe there were any plans for a sequel and I remember feeling cheated out of a real ending. Now that this feeling can be set aside, I can review the book as a mid-series novel. Although a mid-series novel with some degree of finality.

This book is a bittersweet farewell. Bean ends up setting off into space, travelling at relativistic speeds so that he won’t age while the rest of the world passes him by. Meanwhile, everyone else’s story pretty much comes to an end here. I won’t tell you what happens to them all except to say, perhaps, the only thing that could have happened.

Some of this story is devoted to Bean and Petra’s continued search for their missing embryos (now babies), but a lot of it is about united the world under the Free People of Earth and about dealing with the mess caused by ambitious battle-school graduates fighting one another for world domination.

Though this parallel series began with Bean, and continues to follow Bean, it is really more Peter Wiggin who is the focus of this volume. By the end, I have a fair idea what his brother, Ender, might have written in both The Hive Queen and The Hegemon, two works referenced at the end of the original Ender’s Games novel. I think I came away feeling about Peter precisely what I was supposed to — that I did not love him, but I respected him.

Meanwhile, I am eager to discover what will become of Bean, who manages not to be dead yet, though to those he left behind on Earth he may as well be. Bittersweet, like I said.

I liked this book better than Shadow Puppets. I’d say I liked it almost as much as Shadow of the Hegemon (book 2 in this series). Nothing’s going to beat Ender’s Shadow, though. That was a tough act to follow.

The Life Cycle of a Novel: Discarding the First Draft

At this point, I am delving somewhat into the realm of opinion rather than fact. The truth is, every author tackles that first draft in his or her own way. Do you outline first or just go for it? Having gone for it, do you keep writing until the end?

I do outline, at least roughly, but the story doesn’t come alive until you have words on the page. But I do not write my first draft to “the end.” I’ve tried, based on recommendations from other authors, to just plow through and get words on the page, but I find that at some point, those words stop making sense and stop being useful.

The first draft is an exploratory draft. It isn’t even a rough draft. I write until the foundation is insupportable. I don’t sweat the small stuff — [Note to self: Mention this in chapter 2] or [Note to self: Look this up.] are perfectly fair things to put in an exploratory draft (or rough draft, or really anything short of the draft I send my publisher).

But today I realized that I had gone left when I should have gone right. I am now hopelessly lost in the wrong state, and the only way back is to start over. That’s okay — this is what exploratory drafts are for. Actually, in the life cycle of this particular novel it couldn’t have come at a better time. I’m going to have to step away from this novel for a couple of weeks due to the holidays, and while it would be nice to feel like I’m getting something done in the two days I still have left, in the grand scheme of things it’s not going to be a big loss. The thing I need to do right now is stop and think. Luckily, I have some built-in time to do that.

While I’m at it, I’ll write a new outline, one that incorporate the truths I learned from exploring this story. I’ll do a bit more research (just a couple of things that came up as I went along), and I’ll be ready to pick this up again after the holidays.

I feel good right now. Not because of what I’ve done — it’s rubbish, of course! But because I know what I need to do next.

Rereading Shadow Puppets

Continuing my reread of the shadow series, I find myself getting into Shadow Puppets, the third installment in the series which runs somewhat parallel to the Ender’s Game series.

Petra convinces Bean to marry her and have babies early in this book. Since I knew it was coming this time, I didn’t find the idea quite as strange or abrupt as I recall feeling the first time, but I still struggled with one thing: How old are these characters? The passage of time is not well kept in this series, which is probably my biggest complaint. I’m pretty sure Bean is about 13 and Petra 20, although the book reads as though Bean is older and Petra younger. That can’t be true, though, since Petra was older than Ender, who was older than Bean…

To be honest, given Bean’s exceptionality, I don’t care what the numbers are nearly as much as I just want to know them. He’s only got about 20 years to live, so how many are up?.

I am a person who watches the calendar. I keep careful track of the ages of my characters in my own book and it’s a detail I tend to try to follow when I read other people’s books. So this drove me batty, *especially* upon reread because I was trying even harder to look for clues that would help me sort it out! I don’t think they’re there.

Regardless, Bean marries the woman he rescued at the end of Shadow of the Hegemon, a fellow battle-school grad and member of Ender’s jeesh, and they have babies through in vitro fertilization in order to try to isolate the ones with Bean’s life-shortening syndrome and avoid bringing them into the world.

It all goes badly wrong. There is no test, and as soon as Petra is implanted someone steals the rest of the embryos. They try to kidnap her while they’re at it, but that doesn’t work out.

Meanwhile, Achilles is still making trouble, this time in the Hegemon compound where Peter Wiggin made the mistake of thinking he could handle the psychopath. Bean and Petra believe he is behind the kidnapping of their embryos.

This book was a little weird, IMO. I did enjoy it and I do think it is a fair follow-up to Shadow of the Hegemon. But I’m not sure I was ever convinced that Peter would have been taken in by Achilles, I was iffy about the whole embryo-napping plot, and I disagreed with some of the religious philosophy in this book.

I did enjoy watching the battle school grads struggle in this book, and not just Bean and Petra. We were able to revisit several members of Ender’s jeesh as they more or less set out to rule the world.

This is a book I recommend to those who are as invested in Bean and this universe as I am. It had its issues, but all in all it was an enjoyable read that made me think. I am looking forward to rereading the next book in this series, Shadow of the Giant.