Book Review:: Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card is an author who's words I've read several times and nodded along too in agreement, and yet I had never once read any of his fiction. I've read works of his dedicated to the craft of writing and his knowledge there finally convinced me to make reading Ender's Game a priority.

Ender's Game closely follows Andrew Wiggin, known as Ender, as he is selected and groomed for a great destiny within the military defence of Earth. In this future, mankind has found an uneasy peace on earth after surviving two waves of invasion from a ruthless alien race known only as "buggers". As a planet they collude to build a massive fleet and harvest from the brightest and best children the future stars of this war machine.

Ender is one such child, only he is worked harder than all the others, as he is the most promising. The story does a wonderful job, in the classic "hard SciFi" way that focuses primarily on the technology and the world around it, of unfolding a detailed "what if" scenario to completely flesh out the world and events to follow.

It asks and answers questions such as, how do you train children from a young age to be armies, to lead armies? How do you train them to fight in zero gravity? To think in zero gravity without the limitations of earth-like thinking? How do you fight an interstellar war? How do you help children cope with the mental strain?

Much of the novel is gruelling, and tortuous as we follow along through Ender's trials and triumphs, such as they are, and it is all fascinating. I did feel it wore on me. There wasn't much for hope, or compassion in this story, and there felt to be precious little positive emotion in it. I believe this was by design as Orson Scott Card set out to make us understand the unbearable cost of what was done and from the payers perspective, from Ender's.

Many people will and should enjoy this book, especially young people, because in many ways it celebrates the ability of youth to achieve great things and is at it's heart an underdog story, albeit a brutal one.  Given the main events it'd be easy to expect this to be a cautionary tale, but only in the final pages does this really occur and then it feels more like a segue into a sequel then any real message.

My main complaints against the book are it's muddled theme especially in regards to the end. While this is written and titled as if it's the story of Ender, it's treated in end and at various stages much more like the story of Earthlings in the Third Invasion. I think this allowed OSC to explore many more ideas he had but ultimately took away from the power of his central material and at various times made us more interested in largely unimportant characters (Ender's siblings).

I guess in the end I just wished there had been some moralistic message after going through Ender's trials with him. What was there was handled in such a wash of denouement exposition it didn't really resonate. Orson Scott Card exhibits a very analytical understanding of cause and effect in relation to human emotions, relationships, and society and science. His work is solid and well written here, but to my disappointment, it is not Lord of the Flies in Space.

I give Ender's Game 9/10.

Avatar Review and VIP Theatre

I saw this at the Wellington VIP Cinemas in 3D on the weekend and here is my brief overview of both.

First off this was my first 3D movie ever and my first visit to the VIP cinema ever. There were a number of neat 3D moments but none that were more than a novelty which really surprised me since the vast majority of this movie is computer generated which would allow for a lot of stunning 3D moments. I was left with the clear impression that a really good 3D movie would need to be specifically filmed to take advantage of that display medium and very likely be entirely CG with simple colour themes, perhaps a scifi of some sort. I wear glasses and after wearing the tinted 3D glasses over my own for a number of hours my eyes and head started to feel taxed, also a lot more of the movie seemed kind of flickery than maybe it should have.

As for the movie, it followed almost exactly what I thought would happen in the narrative after watching only one trailer. The story is predictable in it's major elements and evokes some amount of both Deus Ex Machina near the end and simultaneously fails to suspend my disbelief in the motives for some of the actions on screen. Maybe this latter is due to a lack of investment in the future world these events take place in - we have only the off-hand word of the "villian" characters to go on that certain pressures are legitimate influences to allow certain contradictory actions.

That said, it was compelling. The story really did have me interested in how they were going to pull off what I thought was coming and the majority of it was pretty cool. This would have made it a watchable and fun movie for me but what the story really does is offers a vehicle for the visuals and concepts. The visuals and concepts in this movie are stand-out the reason to see it in my opinion. This is a really cool place, with really interesting creatures and plants and customs and represented in some of the most stunning computer generated scenes I've seen in a movie. This is not a Pixar movie or a plastic feeling Spirits Within, this is computer generated effects at their best. Acting was great and the translation to the CG characters was flawless... often in video game mocaps and lower quality CG movies actions are overwrought and mime'ish, but here these are living creatures. For these reasons, I'd like to have seen it without 3D to get the full clarity of the visuals. As it was it felt a bit like looking at the Mona Lisa in that funky stereovision.

As for the VIP experience I'd say if you want a big comfortable seat (with a bit of recline) and no hassle seat reservations or are dying to drink while watching a movie or hate watching a movie with kids and teens disrupting things, this place is a well worth the $5 premium. In short, it's ideal for a date. If you want to kick right back, the first-row seats fully recline La-Z-Boy style. VIP Downside? I'm not actually sure how much of the movie I remember...

All in all a good movie and worth experiencing in the theatre even if the main story arc is predictable. The 3D is worth checking out if you've never seen 3D before or are a fan of 3D in movies, otherwise this movie has a lot more to offer than just that. Oh yeah - if you loved this movie, perhaps check out the fantasy version: Ferngully.

Depths of Despair

Bubbles streamed behind the submarine as it floated along the sea floor.

"Here it comes everyone," said Dr. Smythe, "New Atlantis!"

As the sub burst over the shelf ledge a glorous blue structure rose over the horizon like a galaxy of lights being born in front of them.

"It's beautiful," said Kelly under her breath.

"Amazing," said Sam, "You built this?"

"Seatech, along with 3 countries and a couple billion dollars, yes."

"How did you overcome the pressure?  What about prolonged exposure to..." began Benjamin.

"Can it guys," said Kelly, "I swear you'd talk during the Sermon on the Mount.".

New Atlantis stretched its tube-like fingers across the viewing window as it grew even larger, bubbles occasionally billowing up the glass from the sub's motion.

"Hang on," said Dr. Smythe quietly, "this should be fun."

The sub rocked gently at first but it quickly grew to a violent shudder as it drastically picked up speed, rushing forward and away from the ledge.

"Don't worry everyone, we just hit a feeder current slip-streaming over the ledge."

"A feeder for what?" asked Benjamin.

"This!"

The sub suddenly plummeted straight down into the trench beyond the ledge.  The pilot brought the nose down to match their trajectory, stopping the lurching; the city scape disappered as the pitch black maw of the trench devoured their view.

To Ear is Human...

The warp core thrummed on its lazy cycle as Geordie LaForge layed under the console beside it performing a diagnostic.  He had been under almost every console in Engineering trying to track down this problem.  it had started about 2 days ago when the Enterprise had finished running some short range scans on a previously unknown type of ringed gas giant.  After they had warped away he had started to notice the differences in the power readouts; just a few points at first, then a few percents, and now getting worse.  As Chief Engineer he was silently seething over it he had no idea what was causing it.

That was when Lt. Barclay entered Engineering whistling an almost familiar tune.

"Good Morning Chief!", exclaimed Barclay, "Fine day to run diagnostics isn't it?"

"Whatever you say Reggie," said Geordie, slightly distracted, something had his mind buzzing but he couldn't put his finger on it.