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Hidden Empire (Empire, #2)

Orson Scott Card

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Feb 22, 2015 Diana Little rated it it was ok

Sadly I have to give one of favourite author's a 2 star. I was a little perplexed by the vastly differing reviews of love/hate's and I can kind of see why now. Although probably not for the most of the same reasons. When this book originally came out in 2009 I'm sure it might have stirred up a bit of filth because of the civil war and rise of the American Empire depicted in the book. It seems a few readers could not take this book at face value of being a fictitious political "what if" story and Sadly I have to give one of favourite author's a 2 star. I was a little perplexed by the vastly differing reviews of love/hate's and I can kind of see why now. Although probably not for the most of the same reasons. When this book originally came out in 2009 I'm sure it might have stirred up a bit of filth because of the civil war and rise of the American Empire depicted in the book. It seems a few readers could not take this book at face value of being a fictitious political "what if" story and thought the whole book was just OSC's extension of his political and religious views. I personally found it a little sarcastic and I think OSC was playing a bit of devil's advocate on this one. Which by the way was not one of his original stories, but he was enlisted to write the books for a book/game/movie/etc ensemble for the brain child of the original writers (it's right there in the acknowledgements if you don't believe me). I think also still putting this out as OSC science-fiction put off a few people, even though this is a sequal (I didn't realize that when I started it and did not read the first book). This is definitely dystopian, modern day political fiction, so be prepared, there are no aliens or magic in this one, and even his philosophical debates were way below par for what we are used to seeing from OSC...

My big issue with this one, were the characters. I could not really get into or believe most of them; except Chimna, the opening character of the book, I found endearing. I found the relationships between collegues and the president forced and really hard to swallow and the interactions between Cecily(mother) and her son Mark, goading.

I'm curious to how much input the original creators had in the telling of this series, and how much is OSC. We all know he can give us much more. This story might be cool as a 2 hour movie to waste some time one afternoon, but I am not so sure it translates well into a book series. I know OSC is a huge supporter of the gaming and movie industries, so I feel maybe he was trying to help out as much as possible with this one. Regardless, I'm still a huge fan and this won't stop me checking out his other works. ...more

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