Having written more than 50 works in a science fiction genre that always requires creative extra effort, says a lot about the ability of the writer Orson Scott Card. If in addition many of his novels have been awarded with the main awards of this genre, it is ratified that his is not the unfounded profusion, but rather an imagination channeled towards a working method that allows him to go from one work to another with the ease of someone who has found the perfect system that combines creativity and arguments.
As usually happens to me almost every time I start reading an author, I was interested in his beginnings. Beyond the first literary "skirmishes" in minor magazines, the great transformation of the amateur into the writer by trade arose in 1977 after writing the short novel Ender's Game ... That must have been the moment when, after completing one more work Or less extensive, good old Orson must have considered that if he polished up all that torrent of imagination he could be able to write a good novel.
And when the novel Ender's Game became world famous, he would think about rounding off the idea with a saga... By then Orson Scott Card had already learned to tame creativity, filling it with that methodical plan that filled with virtues everything that came after, which It was not little.
Of course, in addition to writing, Orson Scott Card has also wanted to profess his successful formula and never stops presenting creative writing classes. So if you are thinking of finding channels for your imagination when it comes to narrative, spend a few euros and sign up for one of his courses...
Jokes or suggestions aside, I dare to point out that the great work of Orson Scott Card shares, in terms of current narrators of his genre, the best of a John Scalzi channeled into interstellar science fiction and the admired writer of the epic and the fantastic Patrick Rothfuss, summarizing and improving in my opinion parts of one and the other.
3 best Orson Scott Card books:
Ender's Game
It is fascinating to imagine this work at its beginnings as a short novel. Thinking about what was and what ended up closing as a saga of six voluminous installments, connects with the idea of the inexhaustible source of the author's imagination. We find ourselves in a futuristic environment with certain airs of social dystopia in which life is limited to a maximum of children. But at the same time the approach opens up to the idea that in the exception, in the opening of ideologies, the solution to a problem that blocks us may lie.
The extraterrestrial threat in the form of a plague brings a notion of undeniable doom for human civilization. Species from other worlds with the size of insects and the ability to reason with which to coordinate their attacks. Only Ender, the chosen one, the exception, will be able to face the attack. And from this approach, which can be considered simple, a great story spreads between epic, romanticism, science fiction and the humanistic touch that always provides a story in which our existence is on the verge of disappearance.
the voice of the dead
It is impossible to cite Ender's Game as Orson Scott Card's best novel and not place this second part immediately after it, which, however, is certainly groundbreaking. A continuation always anticipates flavors that extend what has already been read. And yet, this new novel baffled everyone, taking place thousands of years after Ender was in charge of the difficult mission of eliminating insects for the most evil purposes in the history of literature.
This time Ender's world has evolved. He should only be a memory, a myth, a legend buried by the Speakers of the dead. But contact with new life forms from other galaxies ends up causing Ender to show up again to try to rid humanity of imminent dangers.
The memory of the Earth
The Return Saga is one of the most unique sets in science fiction literature. In this set part of the Mormon religious imaginary is inserted, as a demonstration of the commitment and moral debt of the author with this belief. But beyond this religious intention, the saga, with this first novel in the lead, has an interesting literary aspect (although the suggestive religious connotation cannot be denied).
Humans who survived their own disasters migrated to the planet Harmony. Knowing the limitations of a civilization given over to selfishness that almost ended everything, the new humans surrender to the Supreme Soul, a computer that will establish rules, laws and punish or reward behavior. But not all humans agree with this approach and the confrontation will end up leading to total extinction. Only the Guardian of the Earth will be able to solve the end of our days.
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