Wednesday July 9, 2008

plot-twist-brain-farts

i am reading the “final” book in the ender’s quartet, a sci-fi series by orson scott card. the first book is called ‘ender’s game’, it’s phenominal. much unlike my spelling. i read the second one, ‘speaker of the dead’, a while ago. and i just finished the 3rd book called ‘xenocide’ and rolled immediately into the 4th, ‘children of the mind.’ now that you have the chronology of my reading, i will get to my point. the final 3 books are vastly different in style and plotline than the 1st. that’s fine and dandy… dandy. but i get the feeling, as the series rolls on, that the author never had an overarching outline for the series, just he took threads and concepts from the previous book and fleshed out a few things in more detail or granularity and advanced the plotline. i am not gonna ruin anything specifically, but it just feels like he re-read the previous book in the series and was like “oh! i can make THIS become THAT and add THIS and BOOM sequel.” i mean, don’t get me wrong, i am still enjoying the novels and would recommend ‘ender’s game’ to anyone, and the rest of the series to sci-fi lovers. but, i can’t get past that feeling that the books are not really entwined from conception, just a series of plot-twist-brain-farts and redefinitions. et cetera.