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Ender's Game - how far to read

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 Jamie Wakeham 27 Jan 2021

I've just read Ender's Game, and am now halfway through Speaker.  It looks like the universe that OSC has created here is quite extensive - more than ten novels and various other short stories, graphic novels, who knows what else.

I read all of the Dune books some time ago, and honestly I wish I'd stopped after the first three.  The series went on and on, and for me it disappeared up its own fundament after a while! So while I still recommend the series to people, I usually suggest that they only read the first three books and only continue from there if they are real completists.

So, I wondered if the same was true for the Ender universe?  Are they all worth reading or is there a natural point at which you should stop before it all gets a bit repetitive or just silly?

 toad 27 Jan 2021
In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

think I stopped at xenocide. 

 Toby_W 27 Jan 2021
In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Gosh, memory failing..., I do remember them not being as good further on but still enjoyable.

Enjoy.

Toby

 C Witter 27 Jan 2021
In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

After the first one. Or... maybe before that?

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

I enjoyed all the Ender's Game series and its follow on which I think is called Shadow series. They link together well, and the first, Ender's Shadow is an interesting retake on Ender's Game. It tails of by the end but on the whole good.

I share your view about Dune. I persevered with the first then tolerated the second and was long past caring by the 3rd. I bailed by then. The writing style grated and the characters were either fodder or with ever increasing and preposterous superpowers. Maybe it is philosophically profound, didn't work for me!

In a similar genre,  I enjoyed Hyperion.

Post edited at 12:05
 jethro kiernan 27 Jan 2021
In reply to richard_hopkins:

Second thumbs up for Hyperion 👍

I found the Enders got progressively worse

 greg_may_ 27 Jan 2021
In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

First three for me then it was getting a bit mih.

Hyperion is most excellent. 

 Kimono 27 Jan 2021
In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

It’s pretty much diminishing returns after the first one sadly. 
 

Hyperion, I thought at the time, was one of the best sci-fi books I had ever read

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

I stopped after reading Children of the Mind, and only read that because I wanted some sense of closure, but that was about it - it felt like a means to an end as opposed to something I felt passionately about. I sort of enjoyed the sequels, but nowhere as much as the original; however, they were (kind of) worth it for specific moments + concepts - they just dragged on...

Conversely I really enjoyed all of Frank Herbert's original Dune series, but have avoided all subsequent spin-offs by Brian Herbert after reading the various prequels - all of which were awful. This is a shame, because I'd have loved to have read a worthy follow-up to Chapter House, but will happily life my life without, as whatever has been written will only spoil it.

OP Jamie Wakeham 27 Jan 2021
In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Thanks, all.

Will certainly give Hyperion a go.  So many books, so little time...

With Dune, the first three felt like a nicely contained history of Paul himself.  Whilst trying very hard to avoid spoilers, where it went from there with so many reincarnated gholas and the arc that Leto II follows just felt very very silly to me.  

I felt that the first book of Ender's Game was a lovely bit of light sci-fi; the major plot twist was maybe rather predictable, but the handling of Ender and how he reacts to the situations he's put into felt very well realised.  As someone who was identified as 'gifted' at a young age and endlessly carted off out of mainstream school for various dubious enrichment courses, there were some odd echoes for me.  At least they never had me kill anyone...

Speaker is much darker and, I think, potentially much richer, but I'm not sure if he's handling it as deftly.  I might have a look at the Shadow series before I go much deeper into Ender's own story.

 ebdon 27 Jan 2021
In reply to Jamie Wakeham:

Hyperion is excellent if you enjoy the genre - certainly one of my favorites, although it's got its flaws they are easily overlooked for the originality and strong narrative, however, I think as others have alluded to I can recommend NOT reading the sequel, Endymion, with I thought was at best mediocre and at worst cheesy predictable derivative nonsense with ruined the first books a bit for me.

 clipstick 27 Jan 2021
In reply to ebdon:

I really liked the second two books with endyminion. All four are excellent! His Illium book is also great.

I read until partway through xenocide and got bored with the series. Apparently, the parallel series that follows one of Ender's classmates is meant to be very good. 

If you like this sort of scifi the red rising saga is very good, bit darker. 


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