Yeah, I know I'm incredibly late to the game here, but I finally read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game a couple weeks back, and I will admit it is quite good. As a piece of science fiction that looks at an incredibly accurate vision of the future of technology (I must say, I was astounded at how much Card was able to predict 30 years ago), this book is amazing. The story itself is also quite good also, telling the story of Ender as he progresses from a 6 year old child sent to a military training installation in space all the way to the war itself.
Without revealing too much, the book does a good job of questioning the ethics of war and space colonization, although at times it almost feels like its being beaten into the ground (not often, but there were times). The only major gripe I had with the book is that the end was a little to hokey. It does a great job wrapping things up and answering questions, but I didn't quite feel that they happened naturally as if they were almost tacked on to make sure that when the sequel was ready all the information was set. Speaking of the sequel, it is sitting on my dresser, but I doubt I will read it for quite a while. It's not that I don't want to read more about Card's universe he created, but... how do I put this.... it wasn't written by Douglas Adams. That about explains it.
As part of proof that we have all run out of new ideas, Ender's Game is now being repackaged as a comic book, a new video game, and (although in production hell, as far as I know) a movie. With that, I'm moving on to a subject that I don't have time to talk about at length right here, but will definitely be a recurring theme, I have to say that while I do like some adaptations and such, books are normally created to be books (same with movies, games, comics, tv shows, etc.). When Douglas Adams adapted H2G2 from the radio drama to the books, he knew that it had to be different. He knew that things that worked in radio weren't meant to work in books and vice versa. Same with his adaptation to the small screen and (although I'm not exactly sure how much of his script was used) to the big screen.
It's not that I think books can't be adapted to film, but they always seem to lose some magic in the transition. Your imagination and mental pictures are replaced by whatever the directer/screenwriter chose to see. It's now hard to think about Harry Potter without picturing Daniel Radcliffe or Gandalf without seeing Ian McKellan. They both have done wonderful jobs portraying the characters, but it still holds your mind back from seeing something different.
That little bit is just chapter one of what I'm sure will be an ongoing saga about transitions between media. To return to the original point of the post, Ender's Game is great, really great. The only problem with it is that it wasn't Douglas Adams.
Without revealing too much, the book does a good job of questioning the ethics of war and space colonization, although at times it almost feels like its being beaten into the ground (not often, but there were times). The only major gripe I had with the book is that the end was a little to hokey. It does a great job wrapping things up and answering questions, but I didn't quite feel that they happened naturally as if they were almost tacked on to make sure that when the sequel was ready all the information was set. Speaking of the sequel, it is sitting on my dresser, but I doubt I will read it for quite a while. It's not that I don't want to read more about Card's universe he created, but... how do I put this.... it wasn't written by Douglas Adams. That about explains it.
As part of proof that we have all run out of new ideas, Ender's Game is now being repackaged as a comic book, a new video game, and (although in production hell, as far as I know) a movie. With that, I'm moving on to a subject that I don't have time to talk about at length right here, but will definitely be a recurring theme, I have to say that while I do like some adaptations and such, books are normally created to be books (same with movies, games, comics, tv shows, etc.). When Douglas Adams adapted H2G2 from the radio drama to the books, he knew that it had to be different. He knew that things that worked in radio weren't meant to work in books and vice versa. Same with his adaptation to the small screen and (although I'm not exactly sure how much of his script was used) to the big screen.
It's not that I think books can't be adapted to film, but they always seem to lose some magic in the transition. Your imagination and mental pictures are replaced by whatever the directer/screenwriter chose to see. It's now hard to think about Harry Potter without picturing Daniel Radcliffe or Gandalf without seeing Ian McKellan. They both have done wonderful jobs portraying the characters, but it still holds your mind back from seeing something different.
That little bit is just chapter one of what I'm sure will be an ongoing saga about transitions between media. To return to the original point of the post, Ender's Game is great, really great. The only problem with it is that it wasn't Douglas Adams.
No comments:
Post a Comment