yong : book 2/25 : Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card

This is my latest stall tactic in my ongoing procrastination of tackling Les Mis . At least it was on Wednesday. Then I procrastinated about writing up this entry for my procrastination book, all the way to today. An easy-peasy read, I'd feel a little guilty about tallying this up as a notch on my challenge bedpost, 'cept that I'd have read it anyway. I'd been waiting for this and the previous book in the series to come out, ever since the first two books took me in hook, line, and sinker.

Book 3 wasn't so impressive. This fourth one also seems to be Card writing for the paycheck rather than anything groundbreaking or truly inspired, but it's good enough to be enjoyable and fun and wrap up this series satisfyingly enough if he so chooses. Of course, it also leaves the door open for a fifth book. Cha-ching! You need to have read the first three to understand it, and you need to have been hooked by the first three to enjoy it. But if you have and you're hungry for resolution, then this is your big, tasty hamburger and fries. Nothing fancy, nothing you haven't had before, but it does hit the spot.

That said, I did love the first two books, Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon, even more than the original Ender's Game. Rich and I had been talking about how there are stories we used to love when we were younger that we just can't read any more. The specific example we both had in mind was science fiction. (Particularly Asimov.) Ender's Shadow was one of my few recent exceptions to this. (A couple others: Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, Joe Haldeman's Forever Peace.)

Here's a thought: If you were a precocious child, you should totally be able to relate to Card's main characters. He's pretty good at building up child characters. He also seems to be equally poor at creating believable adult characters. I wonder if he was a precocious child himself who never really grew up...

I started this book Wednesday afternoon, took a break to hang out with our challenge host Kayan and mooch a home-cooked dinner off her, then came home and read till I finished at 4:24am.

You can read the first three chapters here.

--y