High hopes are required for great disappointment. It was, then, inevitable that Orson Scott Card would fall in my personal regard, as he had for so long held its highest estimation. Ender's Game captured my heart. It is one of the best books I have ever read, and, I believe, ever will read.
I cannot think of reading Mr. Card's latest Ender novel without an aversion bordering on revulsion.
I am not alone in this. I have read, even liked, the previous sequels to Ender's Game. I have read half a dozen of Mr. Card's other works. The majority of them - Pastwatch and Songmaster come to mind - have impressed me. But while Mr. Card has demonstrated his ability to tell a beautiful story, he has also demonstrated his ability to wreck one. By the sixth book in the Alvin Maker series, motivations and limitations essential to the story in the first books were twisted or had disappeared altogether by the last. I no longer knew the principal characters. Herein lies the underlying fear of the Card dilemma; I love Ender. And I do not want to see him ruined.
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