Battle of the Books, Bracket Six, First Semifinal :: Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card & Aaron Johnston vs. After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress

The Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books returns with the long-anticipated first semifinal in Bracket Six, featuring Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card & Aaron Johnston going against After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress. The book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 100 pages will reach the championship round.

Earth Unaware: Tor hardcover, July 2012, 364 pages, cover art by John Harris. Earth Unaware is the first volume in the First Formic War, a prequel series to the classic novel Ender's Game. Earth Unaware reached the Final Four by defeating The Snow by Ross S. Simon in the first round and False Covenant by Ari Marmell in the second round.

The first 50 pages of Earth Unaware introduced us to three key characters: Victor Delgado, a young engineer mining comets with his clan beyond the orbit of Pluto, who learns of an object decelerating toward the solar system, which he believes to be an alien spacecraft; ambitious businessman Lem Jukes, who determines to steal the comet currently being mined by Victor's clan, in order to test a new "gravity laser"; and Mazer Rackham, a Maori soldier being tested for a very elite fighting force. In the next 50 pages, Victor's clan debates how to respond to the approaching object, Mazer's tests take an alarming turn to torture, and Jukes begins his attack.

After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall: Tachyon trade paperback, April 2012, 183 pages, cover design by Elizabeth Story. After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall won this year's Nebula and Locus Awards and was nominated for the Hugo. It reached the Final Four by defeating The Skybound Sea by Sam Sykes in the first round and Pazuzu's Girl by Rachel Coles in the second round.

The first 50 pages of After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall introduced three parallel timelines: today, mathematician and single mother-to-be Julie Kahn analyzes the pattern behind a series of peculiar child abductions; in the near future, ominous new strains of bacteria are mutating; in the year 2035, the last few surviving humans cling to life in a strange habitat, using a time machine to obtain supplies and reinforcements from the past. In the next 50 pages, the bacteria in the near future become a threat to Earth's plant life, Julie goes into labor, and our viewpoint character in the far-future, Pete, begins to break from the strain of their enclosed lifestyle. He becomes violent and despondent with jealousy and foolishly attempts to run away.

The Battle: Generally, by the time we get to the semifinals, we're choosing between some darn good books. This battle is no exception. Through 100 pages, both these books are entertaining and engaging.

I might have expected Earth Unaware to begin with bass drums and cymbals as the seemingly belligerent "Formics" (come on, we all know they're the Buggers) arrive in our solar system. Instead, the novel starts earlier, introducing us to three interesting viewpoint characters, who have no idea yet that they've arrived at a crucial moment in history (although Victor suspects). All three storylines are well-constructed, with some nice interpersonal conflicts already established. I don't know how much of this is actually written by Orson Scott Card, but it all feels like his style——Aaron Johnston has taken well to Card's tutelage.

Similarly, After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall is an apocalyptic tale, but Nancy Kress is much more concerned with the emotional strain on individual human beings than on explosions and special effects. The present-day and 2035 timelines are very nicely written, with solid characterization. The near-future timeline, which lacks any characters, feels a bit repetitive, but it does build an ominous mood as Julie's timeline begins to converge with it.

Through 100 pages, both these books have proven well worth the reader's time. Both feature interesting storylines and good characters. But there is only one character in either book who is compelling to me. In the year 2035, Pete is fighting hard to survive in a bizarre future, but his thoughts are consumed by feelings of love and jealousy and betrayal that any of us can relate to. He is in love with an older member of their band, but he doesn't get to have her because he is not fertile. His internal struggle leads him outside the survivors' enclosure.

While I'd be happy to continue with either of these semifinalists, Pete is the character I most care about, and so his story is the one I don't want to stop reading.

THE WINNER: After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress

After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall advances to the championship round, where it will face either Caliban's War by James S. A. Corey or Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Bracket Six :: Final Four

After some delays, we're finally down to the Final Four in Bracket Six of the Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books:

Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card & Aaron Johnston vs. After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress

Caliban's War by James S. A. Corey vs. Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald

We hope you've enjoyed this tournament so far. This sixteen-book bracket, our sixth, contained books from across the genre. There were science fiction, high fantasy, urban fantasy and horror books. Hopefully some sparked your interest. Good books can and do get knocked out of the competition in the first and second rounds due to strong competitors. I know there are books that I (Amy) would like to read.

Stopping reading good books after only 25 or 50 pages can be difficult, and so can judging between two completely different books. The Battle of the Books format allows us to sample and spread the word about many more new books and authors than we otherwise could.

Now only four books remain. All four "seeded" books made it to the Final Four. This is the first time this has happened.

Thanks again to all the authors and publicists sending us great books to consider. If you're an author or publicist, click here for the rules and an address to send your book if you'd like to be included in a future bracket.

We have had a great response to the Battle of the Books format. More brackets are to come!

Battle of the Books, Bracket Six, Second Round :: False Covenant by Ari Marmell vs. Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston

We begin the second round of Bracket Six of the Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books with False Covenant by Ari Marmell going against Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after the first 50 pages.

False Covenant: Pyr hardcover, July 2012, 280 pages, cover art by Jason Chan. False Covenant is the second book in the Widdershins YA series. It reached the second round by defeating Vampire Empire: The Kingmakers by Clay & Susan Griffith.

False Covenant opened with an action scene in which our heroine Widdershins gets caught up in a robbery gone wrong. In the second 25 pages, we learn that Widdershins is returning to her criminal roots in hopes of saving her struggling tavern, the Flippant Witch. Adding to her problems, a mysterious creature is terrorizing the citizens of Davillon at night, and the Finders' Guild orders Widdershins to investigate. Meanwhile, a stranger named Evrard is looking for Widdershins. Before he finds her, the phantom-like creature finds him.

Earth Unaware: Tor hardcover, July 2012, 364 pages, cover art by John Harris. Earth Unaware is the opening volume in the First Formic War series, a prequel to Card's classic novel Ender's Game. It advanced to the second round by defeating The Snow by Ross S. Simon.

The first 25 pages of Earth Unaware consisted of a chapter from the point of view of Victor Delgado, a young engineer mining comets with his clan beyond the orbit of Pluto, who learns of an object decelerating toward the solar system, which may be an alien spacecraft. Now in the second 25 pages, we have a chapter following ambitious business leader Lem Jukes, who plans to steal the comet currently being mined by Victor's clan, to test his company's new "gravity laser." The beginning of chapter three shows some New Zealand soldiers being tested for an elite fighting force, including a young man named Mazer Rackham.

The Battle: Both False Covenant and Earth Unaware are entertaining and engaging through 50 pages.

Starting with False Covenant, Widdershins is a spunky YA protagonist, and the story is moving along briskly so far, making the book easy to read. There are some good hints of who the players in the tale will be, including the enigmatic character Evrard. But it might have behooved Marmell to give us a better sense through 50 pages what's at stake in this story, to make the book harder to put down.

Anyone familiar with Ender's Game has a pretty good idea what's at stake in Earth Unaware, and the early appearance of Mazer Rackham plays that up effectively. But the greatest strength of the book through 50 pages is the interesting and intricate way Card and Johnston present their characters. For example, Lem Jukes is determined to conduct a successful test of the gravity laser, as a stepping stone to wresting control of their corporation from his own father. He confronts the lead researcher Dr. Dublin about the instructions he received from Lem's father about Lem:

"He told me you were going to be the captain of the ship," said Dublin. "He called you 'most capable.'"

A compliment from Father? A sign of the apocalypse. Of course Father was probably just trying to put Dublin at ease about the crew.

"Did he advise you to take any precautions on my account?" asked Lem. "Did he in any way suggest that you were to take care of me? Look out for me? Keep and eye on me?"

Dublin looked confused. "Your father cares for your well-being, Mr. Jukes. You can't fault him for that."

"A yes or no, Dr. Dublin. Did he give you special instructions regarding me?"

Dublin was taken aback. He fumbled, searching for the right words, trying to remember. "He said I was to make sure nothing happened to you."

So there it was. Undercut by Father again.

The paranoia seeping out of this passage makes Lem an intriguingly unlikeable character, which makes me want to keep reading.

THE WINNER: Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston

Earth Unaware advances to the semifinals, to face either After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress or Pazuzu's Girl by Rachel Coles.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Bracket Six, First Round :: The Snow by Ross S. Simon vs. Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card & Aaron Johnston

The second match-up in the first round of Bracket Six of Battle of the Books features The Snow by Ross S. Simon against Earth Unaware (The First Formic War) by Orson Scott Card & Aaron Johnston. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 25 pages.

The Snow: Damnation Books trade paperback, March 2012, 145 pages, cover art by Dawné Dominique. The Snow is the debut novel of Ross S. Simon, who sometimes masquerades under the name Sam Ridings. The Snow opens on Leif Erickson's Viking longship, in the middle of a fatal meeting with the Norse trickster god Loki. We skip ahead to 1942 aboard a German U-boat, where a Nazi warrant officer has a strange encounter, presumably with the same deity. Next in Loki's path is a modern-day New York stockbroker. Across town, our protagonist Donald Holly is attacked by a possessed bum, prompting him to decide to move back to Minnesota. But it does not appear Loki is through with him.

Earth Unaware: Tor hardcover, July 2012, 364 pages, cover art by John Harris. Earth Unaware is the opening volume in the First Formic War series, a prequel to Card's classic novel Ender's Game. Orson Scott Card is a four-time Hugo Award winner along with a great many other honors, and clearly one of the preeminent science fiction writers living today (although many who dislike his politics pretend otherwise). Aaron Johnston is a former improv comedian who coauthored the novel Invasive Procedures with Card and has adopted many of Card's books to screenplays and graphic novels.

The opening of Earth Unaware takes us to the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Pluto, where clans of humans mine comets for valuable metals. Our teenaged protagonist Victor Delgado learns that his best friend Alejandra is being sent off to live with another clan, because the elders feared the two of them were falling in love, and love affairs within the clan are taboo. Victor deals with his pain by working hard on an invention that will ease his clan's mining operations. The first 25 pages end with Alejandra's sister confiding in Victor that she has detected an object approaching the solar system. The object is decelerating, suggesting it just might be an alien spacecraft.

The Battle: The opening pages of The Snow feature some gruesome imagery and high-voltage action, albeit a little over the top for my tastes. (The scene of a bloodbath is described as "the dead flesh, the severed heads, mangled arms, legs and penises"; a Nazi soldier fires his gun while screaming, "Eat motherfucking blazing lead!") But the first 25 pages do not give us much reason to feel connected to the protagonist Donald Holly.

And that is where Orson Scott Card always excels. He immediately gets you interested in and sympathetic toward his main characters. Here, right from the opening page, Card and Johnston convey Victor's heartbreak at losing his best friend, all because the clan elders believed he was falling in love with her, which he promptly realizes he was. The authors succeed at making Victor an engaging character right from the outset, even if I find Victor's reactions rather too coldly rational for a teenager. (Throughout the Ender series, Card's young characters do not behave like ordinary children, but that is because they are all super-geniuses; the same has not been established as to Victor.)

Having opened with an emotional punch, Card and Johnston quickly turn to showing us some of the nuts and bolts of mining operations on the edge of the solar system. Then they finish the opening chapter (which is exactly 25 pages——obviously Card & Johnston have written this novel with the Battle of the Books in mind) with the suggestion that humanity may be on the brink of its first contact with an alien species, contact that Ender readers know will not go smoothly. It is an exhilarating opening sequence.

THE WINNER: Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston

Earth Unaware advances to the second round, to face False Covenant by Ari Marmell.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Winter 2012, First Semifinal :: Eyes Like Leaves by Charles de Lint vs. Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card

The first semifinal contest in the 2012 Battle of the Books, Winter Bracket pits Eyes Like Leaves by Charles de Lint against Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card. The winner will be the book I most want to continue reading after finishing the first 100 pages.

Eyes Like Leaves: Tachyon trade paperback, February 2012, 313 pages, cover art by Lauren Kelly Small. Eyes Like Leaves got here with wins in the first round over When We Were Executioners by J.M. McDermott and the second round over The Scar by Sergey & Marina Dyachenko.

Eyes Like Leaves is set in a fantasy version of ancient Ireland. The first 50 pages introduced us to the wizard Tarn and his mentor Puretongue, whose magical abilities include shape-shifting. Tarn has been sent to find Carrie, a young woman key somehow to defending the land from the "Icelord," who seeks to undo the longstanding balance with the Summerlord and bring an endless winter. At the end of the first 50 pages, Tarn had to transform into a dragon to defeat the wolves and "stormkin" chasing Carrie. This has utterly exhausted him, and now Carrie and the nomadic family of tinkers that has taken her in must defend themselves while Tarn is incapacitated.

Shadows in Flight: Tor hardcover, January 2012, 237 pages, cover art by John Harris / Macmillan audio, 7 hours, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki and cast. Shadows in Flight reached the second round by defeating Thomas K. Carpenter's Gamers in the first round and Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson in the second round.

Shadows in Flight is the newest entry in the Ender universe. Ender's old friend Bean nears an untimely death from the runaway growth that is a side effect of the genetic manipulation that made him so brilliant. He has traveled on a near-lightspeed spaceship with his three children who share his condition, in hopes that a cure would be found on Earth in their absence, but to no avail. The first 50 pages focused on the terrible stress on their family from the disappointment and isolation. The next 50 pages turn outward, as they spot a huge spacecraft which they believe to be a slow Formic ship, a bugger hive sent into deep space before the war between Formics and humans. They stop to investigate.

The Battle: Asking which of these two books I most want to continue reading is rather academic -- I am going to finish them both, and nobody's going to stop me. But a winner must be declared . . .

Shadows in Flight is smoothly written, with a nice pace and good dialogue and characterization, albeit not quite to the level of Card's finest work, such as Speaker for the Dead and "Unaccompanied Sonata." I think Card made a good choice introducing another ship for Bean and his children to encounter; we needed an additional story element or the family tensions would have become tedious. But I'm not crazy about having the alien craft be a bugger ship. It doesn't add up -- the hive queens can all communicate anywhere telepathically, and Ender's hive queen in Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide was very clear that she was the only one left after the war. More importantly, bringing the Formics back into the story makes this book feel like a rehash of previous volumes.

A synopsis of the plot of Eyes Like Leaves through 100 pages may sound unspectacular, but by his gift with language de Lint is turning it into a most memorable story. For instance, in the section I've just read, Tarn's energy (or "taw") is badly depleted from his battle as a dragon, and Carrie must discover the magical ability she didn't know she had to help him:

She tried to relax, to remember the sensation when Kinn and Fenne had been playing their music, tried to recapture that instant when the music had changed into something different, deeper. Still music, still present, but quiet as an in-held breath, expectant, interwoven with wonder. . . .

She started, drew a quick breath, then it was thick upon her, a magic-filled quickening of her senses, a deep stillness, old and rounded, sharply new.

She focused on Tarn's features and saw his weakness with a piercing insight. It was though she could see through the pale flesh to the spirit inside--a spirit thinned and weakened, bruised and weary. It was her first deepseeing and though she didn't have a name for what she was doing, she understood how it worked. She leaned closer still, cupped Tarn's face in her hands, and breathed his name into the silence.

Through 50 pages, Tarn was already an excellent protagonist and the tinkers were a nice group of side characters; now in these scenes, Carrie emerges as an interesting figure as well. Meanwhile, de Lint also shows us Tarn's state as an exhausted shape-shifter from his point of view:

In the deepest holds of Tarn's taw, he was all the shapes he had ever worn. He was a multitude of configurations that watched each other with eyes of gold and grey and mauve--those that had eyes. They were distanced, one from the other, but in that distancing, there was a sense of elusive oneness, a unity that drifted just beyond remembrance, beyond recognition.

They were each Tarn, but each was unconscious of their former unity.

. . . And those eyes watched, each the other, watched, seeking the memory of that forgotten singleness, watched with eyes familiar, eyes that echoed the struggle to remember, eyes like the autumn leaves of the mythic stonewood tree--gold and grey and mauve.

From this taste of how de Lint conveys his tale, hopefully you can see that my summary--that Carrie discovers her magical ability in order to help Tarn--doesn't do the story justice.

The only fault I found in Eyes Like Leaves through the first two rounds was that the good-versus-evil conflict was lacking nuance. In the latest section, de Lint has addressed that by giving us a glimpse of the tension among the evil forces. They are not blindly following the Icelord, but rather bowing to his power at the moment, while some harbor long-term hopes of overthrowing him. I am interested to see how the dynamics on the bad guys' side play out, and I very much want to watch Carrie's continued development and her interactions with Tarn.

THE WINNER: EYES LIKE LEAVES by Charles de Lint

Eyes Like Leaves advances to the championship round, to face either And Blue Skies from Pain by Stina Leicht or Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear. We'll post the winner of that semifinal round tomorrow, then the championship on Thursday.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Winter 2012 :: Final Four

We are down to the Final Four in the Winter 2012 Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books:

Eyes Like Leaves by Charles de Lint vs. Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card

And Blue Skies from Pain by Stina Leicht vs. Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear

A huge thank you to everyone who has taken an interest in this tournament. Hits at the blog are way up over the past month, and at least half the authors of books in the tournament commented on it at our blog or their own or at Facebook or Twitter. We're very glad folks seem to enjoy this new format. We know we're having a blast, and plan to continue with this format for the foreseeable future. We already have 14 books for the next bracket, so we'll be announcing our Spring Bracket shortly after the current Winter Bracket concludes. Authors and publicists, if you want your book included, you can find the rules and an address to send your book here.

As for the rest of this bracket, we will announce the Charles de Lint / Orson Scott Card winner on Monday, the Elizabeth Bear / Stina Leicht contest on Tuesday, and then crown a champion on Thursday, February 16.

Looking over the bracket, we have discovered a lot more good than bad. While not every book has been to my (Aaron's) tastes, they are all very capably written, including the two self-published books. The books I had to drop out in the second round were so good that we are considering doing full reviews of a couple of them -- or maybe even following up with a consolation bracket.

I am a bit surprised that the four books we named as the "seeded" books at the outset all ended up advancing to the Final Four -- I was expecting more upsets than that. But I suspect that has a lot to do with the composition of this particular bracket. It wasn't that hard to anticipate that Charles de Lint or Elizabeth Bear might come up with a pretty fair book. It looks like our next bracket will have fewer "big names," and thus should be harder to predict.

As with the March Madness tournament, the upside of not having a lot of upsets is that the Final Four features a very high level of competition. Charles de Lint, Orson Scott Card, Elizabeth Bear, and Stina Leicht? Who couldn't find something they enjoyed reading out of that group? Don't forget to check back next week when we announce the results!

Battle of the Books, Winter 2012, Second Round :: Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card vs. Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

The second round of the Winter 2012 Battle of the Books continues with Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card against Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Which book will I most want to continue reading after finishing 50 pages?

Shadows in Flight: Tor hardcover, January 2012, 237 pages, cover art by John Harris / Macmillan audio, 7 hours, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki and cast. Shadows in Flight reached the second round by defeating Gamers by Thomas K. Carpenter in the first round. Shadows in Flight is the latest installment of the Ender universe, following Bean as an adult. Bean's runaway growth continues and he has not much longer to live. He and his similarly afflicted genius children have taken a long journey through space in hopes that, with the time dilation, a cure will be found on Earth. But no luck so far.

Sisterhood of Dune: Tor hardcover, January 2012, 496 pages, cover art by Steve Stone. Sisterhood of Dune got here by its first round win over Jane Carver of Waar by Nathan Long. Sisterhood of Dune is the latest volume in the Dune universe, by Frank Herbert's son Brian and the prolific Kevin J. Anderson. This one is set after the other Dune prequels but before Dune itself, in the period when groups like the Bene Gesserit, the Mentats, and the Spacing Guild were emerging as key forces in the galaxy.

The Battle: This is a contest between the umpteenth volumes in the long-running series that began with the classic novels Dune and Ender's Game. This battle will come down to which of their sequels best gets me interested in the story of this new book.

Shadows in Flight certainly has a new and interesting storyline. Bean and his three gifted children have not received a cure to their condition from Earth as they hoped. Bean will not survive much longer, and these stressful circumstances have generated a terrible sibling rivalry among Bean's two sons, Ender and Sergeant. The book opens with Sergeant planning to kill Bean, as a raw display of power. Ender prevents this by beating Sergeant to within an inch of his life.

This is reminiscent of how the original Ender killed two of his young rivals in Ender's Game, and I find it alarming that Card has returned to this pattern, this time with Bean expressing obvious approval of the new Ender's attack. Can these amazingly brilliant people really find no better way to resolve disputes than to beat each other senseless? (Incidentally, I am old-school enough that I have no problem with standing up to a bully with a punch in the nose; it's beating him to death or nearly to death that troubles me.) Orson Scott Card is an outspoken fan of Isaac Asimov, but Asimov would not have approved -- "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent," he believed.

Still, the family dynamics make for an interesting narrative, and there is an effective scene where we get some insight into the psychology behind Sergeant's aggressive behavior. Add to that a nice level of detail about how life is sustained on this spaceship for years at a time, and you have a book that seems well worth reading on its own merits, regardless of the prior volumes in the series.

The first 25 pages of Sisterhood of Dune also felt fresh to me. I particularly enjoyed the chapter from the point of view of Raquella Berto-Anirul, founder of the Bene Gesserit. Unfortunately, through the next 25 pages, she has only been onstage for one brief scene, while the other sections have bogged down a bit. There are several lengthy infodumps of Dune universe backstory, most of which reads like entries from The Dune Encyclopedia. The Dune universe is so rich and fascinating, there is nothing wrong with filling in details and gaps in the chronology, and I recommend Sisterhood of Dune to devoted Dune fans. But I find it easier to put down than Shadows in Flight.

THE WINNER: SHADOWS IN FLIGHT by Orson Scott Card

Shadows in Flight advances to the semifinals, to face Eyes Like Leaves by Charles de Lint.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Winter 2012, First Round :: Gamers by Thomas K. Carpenter vs. Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card

Our third match of the Winter 2012 Battle of the Books pits Gamers by Thomas K. Carpenter against Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card. These are both science fiction novels with a YA feel -- Gamers is expressly marketed to young adults, while Card's Ender books have been hugely popular with younger readers. The winner of the match will be the book I most want to continue reading after finishing 25 pages of both.

Gamers: Black Moon trade paperback, 2011, 313 pages, cover art by Atikarn Matakangana. This is a 2011 release but I exercised my discretion to bend the eligibility rules to get it into the Battle of the Books, because: (i) I never saw Gamers in 2011 -- as an independent book, it didn't get much circulation; (ii) Thomas K. Carpenter is one of the good people who hang around the Writers of the Future forum; and (iii) I dig the cover art -- although in our scan you may not be able to see the nice detail in the eyes. But it seems I didn't do Carpenter any favors by slipping him into the BOTB, since the luck of the draw placed his novel opposite a fellow named Orson Scott Card.

Gamers is set in a future where pretty much everything you do in life is part of a huge game, and your score is always rising or falling. You can see the score at all times, as part of the constant virtual reality overlay to your senses. Our heroine Gabby DeCorte is a talented teenager who can hack the game to alter what people around her are seeing. In the opening scene she uses that skill to help her friend Zaela, whose score may not be strong enough to put her on the right path after high school. Then Gabby learns that mysterious and powerful figures have taken an interest in her abilities.

Shadows in Flight: Tor hardcover, January 2012, 237 pages, cover art by John Harris / Macmillan audio, 7 hours, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki and cast. Orson Scott Card is one of the all-time greats of science fiction and fantasy, and it's a no-brainer to designate his latest novel as one of our four seeded books. Card is the only author ever to win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel in consecutive years, with Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Ender's Game has probably been the most important gateway to science fiction for teenagers since Robert Heinlein's juvenile books. And I think Speaker for the Dead is even better -- it remains one of my all-time favorite novels.

While Card's books still sell well, a large segment of science fiction fandom has turned away from him due to his outspoken views on political and religious issues. I disagree with him about gay marriage too, but I can't bring myself to pretend he's not an outstanding writer.

Shadows in Flight is the latest volume in the hugely successful Ender universe. A series of these books (the Shadow books) have followed Ender's lieutenant Bean. A genetic condition called Anton's Key is the reason Bean is a genius, but it has also caused him to grow abnormally, from an unusually tiny child to a giant of a man. His body cannot sustain the growth, and he has not much longer to live. And three of his children share his gift/affliction. He has taken them on a long trip in a near-lightspeed spaceship, in hopes that through the resulting time dilation, future centuries of medical advances on Earth will lead to a cure of their condition. In the opening chapter, we see that the three children (Ender, Carlotta, and Sergeant) have grown into incredibly precocious six-year-olds, with an extreme sibling rivalry emerging between the boys. Unfortunately, because no one left on Earth shares their condition, serious research on Anton's Key has ceased.

The Battle: I want to first emphasize that Gamers has a solid opening. The writing flows well (far better than your typical self-published book), the strange half-VR world is interesting, and the teenage characters should be easily accessible to younger readers.

But at the end of 25 pages (actually I cheated and read through page 36 because the print is large), I didn't feel the sort of compulsion to continue reading that I did after a chapter of Shadows in Flight. An author like Orson Scott Card hooks you quickly, and he makes it look easy, so it's hard to put a finger on what he's doing right that a less accomplished writer isn't. Let's try comparing the settings and characters of these two books.

Setting. Carpenter has created an interesting world, where everything you experience is part of a meta-game. But it doesn't pop. This is a high-tech future that should come across as truly bizarre, like a Charles Stross story. Instead, it mostly feels pretty normal, just a couple teenage girls going to school and then hanging out. Carpenter needed to pick certain moments to bring home the strangeness of this future world -- moments when everything changes in disorienting fashion. Instead, an early scene in the book takes his characters to a dusty library, a comfortable and familiar setting to most readers, just the wrong effect.

Card's setting is also interesting, albeit much simpler. The important thing here isn't the spaceship our characters are on, but why they're on it. Even if you haven't read the other Shadow books, within a few pages you understand that Bean, aka the Giant, is doomed from his genetic condition. His children know he's doomed and that they have the same condition, and while they put on brave faces, they have no idea what to do about it. Even worse, their father's great size and expected death have distanced the children from him. Card's set-up places his characters in a terrible dilemma, one that is so simply and clearly explained that no reader could fail to appreciate it.

Characters. Much of the first chapter of Shadows in Flight is straight dialogue, yet it's dialogue that gives us a strong sense of who these characters are. Here are two of Bean's children, Ender and Carlotta (both named for characters in prior books), discussing Ender's analysis of Earth medical research:

"I connect things that the humans could never see."

"We're humans," said Carlotta wearily.

"Our children won't be, if I can help it," said Ender.

"'Our children' is a concept that will never have a real-world example," said Carlotta, "I'm not mating with either of my male sibs, which includes you. Period. Ever. It makes me want to puke."

"The idea of sex is what makes you puke," said Ender.

These are brilliant young people, with an understanding of concepts such as sex that goes far beyond their years, yet they're also children who get the heebie-jeebies at the notion of sex. Card has always had a knack for portraying such gifted children. We don't get as much sense of Sergeant in the opening pages -- so far, he just seems like the same character as Peter in Ender's Game -- but Carlotta and this new Ender demonstrate that Card remains a master at using a few words of dialogue to reveal his characters' personalities.

In contrast, the dialogue in the opening of Gamers is pretty much just talk. We hear some unfamiliar slang, but nothing particularly revealing about what makes these characters tick. Similarly, their behavior doesn't reveal their personalities. This is a missed opportunity, for we learn only three pages in that Gabby can hack the VR overlay on the world all around them, i.e., she can just make stuff appear whenever she wants. Excuse me, but how fucking cool is that? She should be the queen of the world, or at least of her school. Has that gone to her head and made her a spoiled bitch? Or is she the super-cool future version of Ferris Bueller? I feel I should know the answer by now, but I don't.

All of which is not at all meant as a slam against Thomas Carpenter, just my observations of some of what makes Orson Scott Card a great author, while new writers like Carpenter and me are still working to figure it out.

THE WINNER: SHADOWS IN FLIGHT by Orson Scott Card

Shadows in Flight will advance to the second round, to meet either Nathan Long's Jane Carver of Waar or Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Aaron's Top Five Neglected Stories

Jeff VanderMeer asks: What are your top five underrated short stories of all time? This naturally had me looking through my list of favorite stories, where I spotted eight that had not received major award nominations or similar accolades. Two were by the same author, so I culled out one of those, then I dropped the two stories that were later expaned into novels to get my list:

Walter M. Miller, Jr. - Crucifixus Etiam (1953) Most of my favorites from the Golden Age are on the usual suspects list, "Flowers for Algernon," "The Star," etc., but "Crucifixus Etiam" has been largely forgotten. In a way, that's appropriate; the story is about brave pioneers whose heroic efforts will surely be forgotten by the later generations who benefit from them.

Orson Scott Card - Holy (1980) Card is known for Ender's Game and sequels, but much of his best work is in his early short fiction. Some of his best short stories were well received at the time, such as "Unaccompanied Sonata" and "Lost Boys," but "Holy," from Robert Silverberg's New Dimensions series of anthologies, was almost entirely ignored. Card must have written it on a dare -- the story is about a man trying to get to a particular rock to smear human feces on it, and by the end Card actually has you caring about whether that happens.

Connie Willis - Chance (1986) For all the awards Connie Willis has won, "Chance" somehow slipped through the cracks, but it's one of her very best, emotionally powerful albeit not as funny as, say, "Even the Queen."

Greg Egan - The Moral Virologist (1990) Originally published in Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine, this is a great thought experiment story. What if you tailored a virus to kill people who commit adultery?

Susan Palwick - Sorrel's Heart (2007) This is one of my favorites of this century, from Palwick's collection The Fate of Mice. It didn't get the attention it deserved, although Jonathan Strahan picked it up for his year's best anthology.

Mini-Review :: Empire by Orson Scott Card

Tor hardcover - 340 pages
Copyright 2006
Rating: 4/10
(Not Bad, But Not Recommended)
Mini-review by Aaron Hughes

I didn't get around to doing a full review of Orson Scott Card's Empire when it came out late in 2006, but in my recent review of Ender in Exile, Card's latest novel, I mentioned in passing that I thought Empire was marred by Card force-feeding the reader his political views. As someone who is generally a great admirer of Card's work, I wanted to explain this negative comment more fully.

Empire is a near-future thriller about the outbreak of civil war in the United States, a war fought not between geographic areas but rather along ideological lines. Special Ops Major Reuben "Rube" Malek and Captain Barholomew Coleman struggle to hold the country together through a crisis, including the assassination of the president and the invasion of Manhattan, precipitated by hatred between American conservatives and liberals. (The novel ties into a video game, but the only indication of this in the text are a few graphics-friendly elements such as the two-legged mechanized tanks that occupy New York; the story appears to be Card's creation.)

Empire is capably written and features engaging characters in an exciting story, punctuated by plot twists you will not see coming. Yet the book is a failure, because it is impossible to enjoy if you do not share Card's political views, and difficult to enjoy even if you do. The book is far too burdened with Card's contempt for modern liberals, especially the media and academics:

The media has forbidden us to remember the falling towers. They don't allow us to see the footage. It's like their slogan is, "Forget the Alamo." I'm tired of being obedient to their decision to keep us blind.

Either directly through the narration or indirectly through his mouthpiece Rube, Card continually expresses disdain for the Left:

Princeton University was just as Reuben expected it to be -- hostile to everything he valued, smug and superior and utterly closed-minded. In fact, exactly what they thought the military was.

Even though I agree with many of Card's political points, taken together they undercut the purported message of Empire, that liberals and conservatives should stop viewing each other as the enemy and find common ground.

At times Card attempts to be even-handed, but he can't get his heart into it. So he shows an ultra-right general spouting pig-headed, homophobic rhetoric, but we soon learn he was only feigning bigotry. Card emphasizes that Rube's wife is a Democrat, but she never actually says anything that reflects a liberal viewpoint. (The closest she comes is to chastise Rube for denouncing left-wingers too harshly.)

It is all too obvious which characters' politics mirror Card's. The most telling giveaway is the novel's plot. At every turn, conservatives try to hold the country together while liberals gleefully help to break it apart. Two days after the assassination of the President by terrorists, a military force seizes Manhattan and slaughters the NYPD. Incredibly, Card shows American liberals supporting these invaders, merely because they call themselves "progressives" and denounce the 2000 election. How could anyone who experienced 9/11 believe that would be the prevailing reaction?

Through the story of Empire, Card is doing exactly what he claims to be counseling against: demonizing his political opposition. Card wrongly views the American Left as the enemy, nor does he understand his enemy very well.

Book Review Teaser :: Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card

New on Fantastic Reviews is Aaron's review of Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card.

From Aaron's Review of Ender in Exile :
"Ender in Exile is a good but not great book by a great, not just good, author. It is the latest entry in the saga of Ender Wiggin, a series that began in the mid-1980's with Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Those two novels managed the unprecedented and still unduplicated feat of sweeping the Hugo and Nebula Awards in consecutive years, and together they form one of the major landmarks in the history of science fiction."

"Twenty years ago, on the strength of Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead as well as the Alvin Maker series and outstanding short fiction such as "Unaccompanied Sonata" and "Lost Boys", Orson Scott Card was very widely regarded as one of the leading authors in the SF/F genre. Today his books still sell well but he does not garner the same sort of acclaim and awards, and a surprising number of critics and fellow authors are dismissive not only of his recent efforts, which even a devoted fan must admit are not as consistently powerful as his earlier work, but of his entire body of fiction."

"Sadly, I suspect much of this disdain is politically motivated....."

To read the entire review -> Ender in Exile

In addition, to sort out where Ender in Exile fits in the Ender series, we've set up this Ender Chronology diagram.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: The Folk of the Fringe by Orson Scott Card

The Book of the Week is The Folk of the Fringe by Orson Scott Card, cover art by Carl Lundgren. This is copy #159 out of the 475-copy special limited first edition with slipcase, published by Phantasia Press in 1989. The Folk of the Fringe is a collection of beautifully written short stories all set in near-future Utah, where Americans attempt to rebuild after the collapse of civilization due to biological war and global climate change. (Ironically, Card is today an outspoken global warming skeptic.)

This slipcovered limited edition was issued simultaneously with a much less expensive trade hardcover edition. The bookseller from whom I acquired the Book of the Week apparently did not realize that he had the far more valuable limited edition, perhaps because the signed limitation page is inserted at the back of this book instead of in the front. And so I got to add to my collection a book I had coveted but for which I hadn't been prepared to cough up full price. Of course, the bookseller gets the last laugh. The bread and butter of the used book trade is taking advantage of us poor suckers who hang out at bookshops hoping to find a rare first edition, but buying out the rest of the booksellers' stock while we look.

Aaron's Hugo Recommendations :: Novella

FIVE FAVORITE NOVELLAS OF 2007:
Neal Asher, “Alien Archeology” (Asimov's, June ’07)
Orson Scott Card, “Stonefather” (Wizards)
John Meaney, “Sideways from Now” (Fast Forward 1)
Dan Simmons, “Muse of Fire” (The New Space Opera)
Connie Willis, “All Seated on the Ground” (Asimov's, December ’07)

NOTES:
There were many fewer novellas published last year than novelettes and short stories. Out of this relatively small pool, by far my favorite novella of 2007 was “Sideways from Now” by John Meaney, a terrific combination of hard SF with a New Weird sensibility.

It is a testament to the amazing talents of Orson Scott Card, Dan Simmons, and Connie Willis that their respective stories merit award consideration even thought they all fall short of the authors’ very best work. I’d especially love to see Orson Scott Card get a Hugo nomination, just to annoy the tolerance police who insist that Card should not win awards because they dislike his political and religious beliefs.