I am not much of a reader.  I think that I’ve mentioned that before.  I tend not to read fiction very much in particular.  But what little fiction I read, I almost always enjoy tremendously.  I’ve had a lot of luck too given what little material I’ve read.  Or maybe I’m just not that discriminating.  I don’t think this the case because I start to read more often than I actually finish.  I just don’t waste my time if I don’t get caught up in the story in the first 30 pages or so.

Okay, so I read, I’m just impatient and REALLY discriminating.  There we go.  But, if I like the material, I will read it over and over and over again.  It just so happens, there are only a few books that I’ve done this with.

The most notorious in my collection to get its binding worn and even repurchased is Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game.  It is, without a doubt, my most favorite book in the entire world.  It is to books what Braveheart is to film for me.  Additionally, I really enjoy every subsequent book.  The second book in the series, Speaker for the Dead, is my second favorite book of all-time.  Then there is the parallel series that starts with Ender’s Shadow that captures the number three spot.

Needless to say, I love the Ender’s series and every book that is associated with it.  This is as much to do with the content of the books as with how much care and preparation Card obviously takes with them.  Yet when the latest book came out, Ender in Exile, I was very, very hesitant.  You see, Orson Scott Card has been writing a lot lately.  He has increased his web presence enormously and the volume of his reviews and essays seems to be a major focus of his life right now.  What’s worse is that he’s extremely opinionated.  What’s even worse is that I unfortunately do not agree with most of his opinions or even the logic that follows them.  Take for instance how differently we both thought of The Day the Earth Stood Still.  This is his.  This is mine.  I do however appreciate the creative perspective he puts on some issues.  It’s clear that he is working from a differenct set of premises than I do in coming to our respective points of view.

Then I read Empire.  For those of you who don’t know, Empire is Orson Scott Card’s attempt to usurp Tom Clancy’s reign as the king of political thrillers.  It doesn’t work.  To his credit, it wasn’t Card’s original idea.  It was developed with the intention of becoming a video game.  The game may actually be pretty good based on Card’s plot, but the story isn’t.  And I tried really hard to like it.  But there seemed to be too much infusion of his or other political ideas that I thought absolutely detracted from the story.  The characters were paper thin as well.  But, everyone tries something new and it either works out or it doesn’t.

Political motivation scares me when it comes to near sacred texts of fiction as in Ender’s Game.  I was afraid that there may be some political motivations coming out of Card that would end up in Ender in Exile.  Also, Card has been hocking Ender for sale a lot lately, it seems.  Too much?  I don’t know yet.  There were enticements of new Enderverse stories to help in the sale of his magazine Intergalactic Medicine Show, then the comic adaptations of Ender’s Game and soon, Ender’s Shadow.  Of course, the film version of both Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow has been in the works for a few years now too.

To his credit again, however, the short stories that I have read that take place in the Enderverse have been pretty good.  And the Marvel comics based off Ender’s Game are very good as well.  So, I can’t exactly argue that anything “sacred” has been abused necessarily.  In fact, it has had the opposite effect.  But still, I hesitate.  I’m not opposed to an author making money on good material.  I encourage it.  And an author has every right to use his work as a method of expressing his or her opinion or feelings on certains subjects.  Yet there is something to be said of a piece of art that takes on a life of its own.  The art no longer belongs to the author in an essential if not legal sense.  It belongs to everyone.

In short, my fear for another Ender sequel is due to the potential exploitation of the source material for either political or monetary gain.

I am, however, happy to report that neither takes place in Ender in Exile.  It is good for itself and as a supplement to the Ender series.  It is well written and true to the characters and the worlds that they live in.  There is not a hint of pretention or plasticity.  There are some unexpected turns but they all turn out as they should.  It must not be easy to fill in the gaps of material that was written as far back as 25 years ago and fit those spaces with quality where they were obstacles to the stories that came before.

The book is a fantastic blend of both the essential story elements in both Ender’s Game as well as Ender’s Shadow.  Though it starts a little slowly at first, it quickly builds momentum and reads fluidly.  It handles some of the technical plot mistakes made from writing the series over such a long period of time and patches up well.

The key reason that this book works so well is that there is a story to be told here.  There is a substantial amount of time yet to be devoted to Ender between Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead that includes compelling tales that can only further Ender’s mythos.  I can’t wait to read them.

If you are a fan of the Enderverse and of Orson Scott Card, then you should have no trouble picking this one up and blasting through it in mere hours.  I know I have some friends who refuse to purchase anything by Card, particularly due to his stance on gay rights issues, but do me a favor and find a copy of Ender in Exile and read it anyway.  It will remind you of why you loved Card for so long and though you may not agree with his stances on some things, he still has a good bead on the human condition.  Give it a shot.  I’ll be reading it again shortly.