Customer Reviews

Children of the Mind

5 star:		(56)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

Ender's Game entertained me, Speaker for the Dead educated me, Xenocide enthralled me, and finally Children of the Mind absolutely immersed me. I think by far this book beholds the best character development out of all of the books. Establishing great characters from Xenocide, you truly get to know, feel, and grow with the focused characters in the fourth book as they develop relationships both brutally and beautifully, confront the final fears that the series has built up to while also producing an amazing end to the Ender Wiggin Saga. The many sides of the tale are so well intertwined, that connecting with the characters and their emotions become so much more easier than what Card did previously. All the profound touches on religion and culture are all here, fantastically written by Card yet again. If the first three books have kept you enraptured, do yourself a favor and finish the amazing saga with Children of the Mind.

i read it. in one night. and i read slowish. i have never read a more passionate (albeit rushed) book in my life. the deep dialouge, the character completion, just the mental images and scenes. the use of many cultures throughout the series....just beautiful.

Card is one of my favorite authors. The only reason he's not my declared favorite is just because I haven't read everything by him yet. The Ender series stands as my favorite serious sci-fi series; I hold that Card serves up the perfect formula of adventure, levity, technical science, technically skilled writing, and just plain fun. The second half of the Ender series is noticeably more self-indulgent than the first. It seems stuck in that twilight zone where it might have been better if it were shorter, but everything seems to be vital to the storyline!

While not as gripping as the previous installments, I found the continued development of Ender and his doppelgangers satisfying, but I would have liked more about Novinha (though I can always refer back to Speaker) and some of the others. Card's ideas are still fresh and engaging; I thought the ending was well-done (after all, how DO you end such a stellar series? The pressure was immense and he came through), and furthermore, Card had the intelligence to know when to quit - to know when the story is over and not try to drag it out forever just to make more money. My hat's off to him - this was a great series, the ending is exemplary; not too long, not too short. And now it's on to Ender's Shadow.

Ok, I just started on this book...but I noticed several ERRORS immediately!!!! FIRST: It says Jane will "die" once all the networked computers of the hundred worlds is turned off. WRONG! in Xenocide it says Jane WILL LIVE even without the computers, but she will be mentally crippled. SECOND: It says there are dozens of FTL starships now in use. HOW CAN THAT BE? In Xenocide it was clearly established that Jane can only take a ship OUTSIDE and back INSIDE IF...IF either Ender or the duplicate Peter or the duplicate Val were inside it! So how can there be "dozens of FTL starships in operation"???!!!!!! Ender has vowed never to go OUTSIDE again. That leaves the duplicates of Peter and Val. So how is it that suddenly dozens of FTL starships are in use????? What is Orson Scott Card thinking? Has he forgotten what he wrote in Xenocide?

The Starways Congress is shutting down the net, world by world, and has gathered a fleet to destroy the planet Lusitania. Jane, the evolved computer intelligence, can save the sentient races (humans, buggers and pequeninos ) but only for a while. Once enough of the net is closed down, Jane will not have access to sufficient processing power to move the ships.

In the meantime, Ender is failing and his children must save Jane if they are to save themselves. Jane is losing her memories and concentration as the net is shut down. If Jane is to survive, she must find a way to transfer her aiúa (or soul) to a human body - and who better than Young Val or Peter? But which one, and what will be the consequences of the choice? And what about Ender himself?

`To light a candle of truth where there was no truth to be found. That was Ender's gift to us, to free us from the illusion that any one explanation will ever contain the final answer for all time, for all hearers.'

I have very mixed feelings about this instalment of the Ender saga. I enjoyed the first three books more: the story moved at a different pace and the solutions posed to dilemmas were not always so neat. In this instalment, I found elements of the worlds created irritating, and the Jane that was saved was not the Jane I had come to admire over the course of the series. At the end of `Xenocide' I cared enough about the characters and their worlds to keep reading in order to see how the various elements were resolved. For the sake of completeness, I'm glad I finished but it really didn't work for me. I am dissatisfied: by the neatness of the happy ending, and by elements of the transformation of Jane.

`And then it was over.'

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

I was put off reading the last few books of the series by countless reviews and rumors about how badly the books had turned out. Eventually I got around to reading them anyways, and I loved every one of them. I read this book in 2 nights because of how engrossing it was. It should be noted, the style of the books changes from Ender's Game to this final one, from sci-fi, to a bit more fantasy with all the soul stuff, but I didn't mind. I love fantasy too and the story hinged on the way the universe is described. It's a shame more detail couldn't have been spent in describing all the things that go along with the magical feat of faster than light travel, but Card spent his time focused more on the characters and story. Anyways, if you have an open mind, I think you'll enjoy this book a lot too.

Edit: Only complaint was as another reviewer mentioned: (SPOILER) In Xenocide, it's said that Jane needs to travel with the ship to perform faster than light travel. That's why Ender was in the original test ship and why Val and Peter were needed even at the end. Yet in the last chapter, it seems Card just forgot that rule and has anyone using FTL that wants to. I would have liked some explanation, even if it was a one liner saying Jane realized she didn't need to be with the ship to hold it's image while it's on the Outside, or something like that.

Ender's game was amazing. I was surprised to find that SftD was just as amazing, and that Card had the ability to continue a series in a completely different, yet equally intriguing way. After reading some poor reviews about Xenocide, I was surprised to find it addicting and extremely enjoyable. I was awed at the ending, so I was excited for CotM. I enjoyed this novel, and was satisfied by the ending, but couldnt help feeling that the first two thirds of it were mostly unnecessary and seemed out of place. Card could have dealt with the events of these first two thirds differently, and added this denouement to the end of Xenocide in order to tie things up more quickly. Nonetheless, excellent ending to an excellent series, despite a slight misjudgment on Card's part.

After reading Xenocide , I was eager to read Children of the Mind. Children of the Mind was a lot better than I thought it would be after reading Xenocide and having been disappointed with Card straying from his roots that made Ender's Game and Speaker of the Dead such good books in the series. What makes Children of the Mind great is not only does it make up for Card pouring his heart's philosophies out in Xenocide, but Children of the Mind does what the last book in a series should do; which is close it out in a proper fashion. The plot, the story, and the amount of philosophy are all just right in Children of the Mind. Readers who are coming off Xenocide will be pleasantly surprised to find the Children of the Mind is nothing like its philosophical other half in Xenocide. In particular, the strengths of Children of the Mind include believable characters such as Grace Drinker, Malu, and Wang-Mu. I've enjoyed the Ender Quarter immensely as I've searched the summer for cures to boredom. With the Ender's Quarter I not only found a way to pass the time but found out some things about the world around me and how Card teaches the reader as well as writing a particularly good storyline.

First there was "Ender's Game", then "Speaker of the Dead", both Hugo winners, and now this great book that unravels and reweaves Ender's life and surrounding events and situations. This book is fantastic and I eagerly added it to other great books ranging from the Old School of science-fiction like "Foundation trilogy", "Childhood's End", "Stranger in a Strange Land" to cyberpunk like "Neuromancer", "Cryptonomicon", and "Darkeye: Cyber Hunter". Get it!

I was extremely disappointed with this book. Ender's Game was fascinating but Speaker for the Dead had very little action and this book just was the absolute pit. Card sets up situations and then never uses them, the actions of his characters are all futile and every character is just a repeat of one created in a previous novel with a personality quirk. More importantly, we never discover who the people really are; we only learn their basic epithet, the blind one, the religious one, the silly one.

The entire "Descoloda is sentient" argument gets tedious, the same conversations are repeated multiple times and nothing really happens for a really long time as if Card suddenly remembered that something actually has to HAPPEN in a book. The OCD people are just irritating. Card also creates charactes with potential (like Plikt) then discards them and they aren't spoken of again. Also he seems to write himself into holes and then have to write himself out again with this "Well what we spent the last 400 pages saying wasn't true suddenly is." The "think-travel" is just ridiculous. Card needs to learn to be less random in his writing for sure.

This book leaves off exactly where it started and nothing really gets acc