Ender in Exile

Exile is a bit of an odd book, taking place between two existing ones in the series and actually retelling Ender's Game's final chapter, where he travels to one of the first colony planets and finds the last hive queen. Large sections of it are cobbled together from short stories that were previously published, and the purpose of it is mostly to tie up a few loose ends and inconsistencies from both the Ender and Shadow sagas. Still, I had about as good a time as ever reading it, it wasn't as inventive or surprising as the other novels since I basically knew what had to end up happening, but I did enjoy it.

It's hard to blame the story for not being as enthralling as the others, as it doesn't have the opportunity for the amazing scientific discoveries of the first quartet or interesting global military conflict of the second. Considering that Ender spends most of the story just traveling to his destination and doing things we were already aware of, it actually managed to grip me pretty well, as I blazed through the nearly 400 pages as quick as I ever do with Card's writing. I'm not sure what it is, but he seems to read almost as easily as if I was complacently watching it on television. The conflicts at hand weren't particularly incredible, but it all fit together well enough. I did like the final resolution of the Achilles arc, although it might be the first time I thought I was smarter than one of the series' many genius characters. There's another book coming at some point down the road that should wrap up the series once and for all, and I look forward to reading it.

A War of Gifts

It's been some time since I had a new book in the Ender universe to read, and it was nice to get back to it, even if this story is pretty irrelevant to anything else in the overall plot. The book is comically tiny when you first see it, and I blasted through it in one sitting. Things return to battle school once more as a new student is introduced, one close to as brilliant as Ender and Bean but who refuses to participate in the Battle Room due to his strong religious beliefs. His convictions get him in a conflict with other students over the practice of their faith which is forbidden at the school, and his character arc is an interesting one considering its lack of importance to the main story of the series. I still find Orson Scott Card's prose to be wonderfully easy and enjoyable to read, and he still manages to get across complex ideas in a way that is simple to comprehend without dulling the meaning. It was a nice little snack to get me back into the groove for Ender in Exile, the newest real entry in the series that I somehow missed when it first came out late last year.