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3/5. And this is a pity 3. So remember how I was talking about how really good writers try new things? Card used to do this, but now he has become ... the antithesis of this; apparently he now has nothing better to do than to write increasingly irrelevant (and what's worse, boring) fanfic about minor characters from a spinoff of his most popular work. It's frankly quite surprising to me that the same man who wrote the brilliantly disturbing Ender's Game and the incredibly moving, thoughtful, and subtle Folk of the Fringe, not to mention the layered Memory of Earth series, is putting out this kind of shallow garbage.
I mean, I was expecting the terrible dialogue where all the characters come across as OSC clones. That's par for the course. (Although even there, you don't find this kind of dialogue in Fringe.) But this tale of Bean in space with his genius mutant kids fails not only on a tired-tropes-are-we-still-talking-about-this-why level but also on a basic writing level, which is really surprising to me because I've always relied on him to at least get that right. ( Mild spoilers, but really, do you care? Mostly cut for rantiness: in which I make fun of various things, solve the characters' problem for them, and am angry at retconning. ) So, I mean, I think this was a book he needed to write, and that maybe he didn't think he had time to really do it justice, and I get that. I understand that things come to writers and they have to put them down. But I do not think this is a book you necessarily have to read, unless like me you are an OSC addict.
And even then, I swear to you, if he writes a book about Bean's grandchildren, I am not going to read it. Even I have my limits.
I mean, I was expecting the terrible dialogue where all the characters come across as OSC clones. That's par for the course. (Although even there, you don't find this kind of dialogue in Fringe.) But this tale of Bean in space with his genius mutant kids fails not only on a tired-tropes-are-we-still-talking-about-this-why level but also on a basic writing level, which is really surprising to me because I've always relied on him to at least get that right. ( Mild spoilers, but really, do you care? Mostly cut for rantiness: in which I make fun of various things, solve the characters' problem for them, and am angry at retconning. ) So, I mean, I think this was a book he needed to write, and that maybe he didn't think he had time to really do it justice, and I get that. I understand that things come to writers and they have to put them down. But I do not think this is a book you necessarily have to read, unless like me you are an OSC addict.
And even then, I swear to you, if he writes a book about Bean's grandchildren, I am not going to read it. Even I have my limits.
