Monday, June 21, 2010

Sweet Relief

There is nothing like an author coming through for his readers. I just read Ender in Exile last night. And stayed up until 2 AM to finish it. When an author writes a series for so long, and that series takes so many twists and turns through characters, planets, and the space-time continuum, I get nervous as a reader. What if he decides this is the book that Ender reveals a secret, malicious side? What if he introduces a new character that doesn't make sense and ruins my images of the people I've spent ten years getting to know through these books? Do I sound like a crazy person yet?

I started reading Ender's Game in my tenth grade English class. Sadly, due to getting the flu that November as well as my teacher's bitterness that we were reading this instead of The Old Man and the Sea, I never got to do my favorite thing: discuss it in an English class setting. But I read and reread that book. It was one of the first sci fi books that got my complete attention. Orson Scott Card does an amazing job of capturing the emotional roller coaster of human emotion in these children who face an impossible task. I don't think there's one book I haven't cried over.

So Ender in Exile is supposedly the end of these books. It came out in 2008. So I waited to read it. I was terrified that I'd be disappointed. That I'd not be interested. But I was so wrong. It actually takes place in between the last two chapters of Ender's Game, but it still basically holds the end of the whole plot. It's difficult to explain and involves light years so I won't bore you. But it was like FINALLY getting all of the answers I needed from the book I read at 14 years old. And realizing how important it was to know all of the other things I knew before knowing Ender as an adult.

It's been ages since I stayed up on a school night to finish a book. I couldn't stop. Because I knew at the end, I'd have this feeling that would make me feel content. It's the same feeling I get whenever I read an Ender book. Even if it ends in turmoil, you still feel reassured that there is some good left in people, that you can fix the wrong in the world, and that even the super geniuses among us love and lose and cry and laugh. It's official. I DO sound like a crazy person. But you should pick up Ender's Game. And then call me when you're finished.

No comments: