Conference noted::sf

I'm about 3/4's of the way through it right now, and it's going very 
well. Also looks like a few more books could be written about the same 
time.

        /s/     Bob

  I just finished Ender's Game.  It's one of the best I've read in a while.  Has
Card written any other novels or short stories ?

				John Mc

Well, I've finished, and it was a good one. The ending is somewhat 
suprising (no I won't spoil it for you), but well done. I would 
reccomend this to anyone who likes the more tech side of sf with enough 
of the human side to keep it even more interesting.

        /s/     Bob

re: .2
Try "the Worthing Chronicles"
It restored my faith in Card after his dip from the orignal Ender's Game.
It's a novel.

- tom]

Scott Orson Card has been near the top of my list of New Authors for a long
time,  He has maybe six books out, but I can never find any, and I can't
remember the titles...

Jim.

Fans of ENDER'S GAME will be pleased that a sequel, SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD,
will be appearing in hardcover in March (actually, it's a March book, so
it should be out by February).

Other books by Card? Let's see, from memory:

THE WORTHING CHRONICLE	[novel, actually a re-working of two previous books:
    HOT SLEEP: THE WORTHING CHRONICLE  [novel]	and
    CAPITOL		[collection]

SONGMASTER		[novel]
A PLANET CALLED TREASON	[novel]
UNACCOMPANIED SONATA	[collection]
HART'S HOPE		[novel]

He's also edited two anthologies:

DRAGONS OF LIGHT
DRAGONS OF DARKNESS

--- jerry

I just read someplace that Ender's Game is the most nominated contender
for the Nebula this year.  There's a new Card short story ("Salvage")
in the latest IASFm, which also includes a new William Gibsons serial
for fans of "Neuromancer".

len.

** spoiler warning **

I too got wrapped up in the book.  Here was a classic means versus
ends story: tormenting a small child for the greater good of the
species. They turned this kid into a monster in order to make a
strategist out of him. What on earth was going to happen to Ender once
they had wrung him dry? And it turns out that .... nothing happens.
He feels bad about killing an alien.  Everyone slaps him on the back
and then goes home. The alien forgives him.  The sadistic trainer is
forgiven.  Even his psychopathic brother reforms. 

So Card comes down on the ends side of the issue.  It was fine to do 
all these horrible things to all these children because everything 
did turn out all right in the end.  Considering the strong moral 
current running under the story, I was surprised and disappointed.  
Evil actions should have evil consequences.  The act of warping Ender 
into an Alexander should have had some moral effect on the men and 
soceity who did it to him, but didn't seem to.  Once he played his 
game, he dropped out and that was that.

Now, it could be that this kind of crime would not in fact have any 
consequences on its perpetrators.  Then the author is taking the stand
that morality is irrelevant, that there is no justice.  That's a 
valid theme for a story, but doesn't seem to be what's used here.  
Card seems to forget about the whole issue after Ender finishes the game.
Ender feels a need to atone for what he's done, but no one else 
atones for what they did to him.  Maybe that's where the original 
short story stopped and the padding to fill it out to novel length 
was inserted.  A disappointing ending to what was a fine novel overall.

/jlr

    As far as what happens to Ender - read "Speaker for the Dead". In
    the second book he does an excellant and moving job of dealing with
    Ender's moral delemma. I just finished both books - stayed up way
    too late last night finshing "Speaker".
    

    Finally came across "Speaker for the Dead" in the bookstore yesterday.
    Enjoyed it just as much as "Ender's Game."  Wish it were in paperback,
    but didn't regret paying for hardcover.
    
    While both books deal with technology to some degree, Card's focus
    is really on persons and interpersonal relationships.
    
  --Simon
    

    	Having had the pelasure of hearing Orson Scott Card speak at
    Worldcon, I can tell you that yes, it will be a trilogy. 
    
    	He said that the book he really wanted to write was "Speaker
    for the Dead", but that his editor(?)/publisher(?) felt that you
    needed "Ender's Game" to make sense out of SftD.  
    
    	Card said that he wants to write one more about Ender's kids,
    but he is resisting the temptation to call call it "Ender's Children"
    because he might then want to write "God emperor Ender", "Heretics of
    Ender", "Chapterhouse Ender".... 
    
    	Go hear Card speak if you can.  He's an excellent reader, a
    an interesting speaker, and quite modest and nice to be with.
    
    tlh
    
    ender

   re:	< Note 295.11 by NINJA::HEFFEL "Tracey Heffelfinger" >


   I have been dying for over a year now for more Ender Wiggin.  Anybody
   heard any more about the possible third book?
   
   BTW - Card is now writing the games column in COMPUTE! magazine.
   
   D=
   

    
    	It's been two years since the last reply, and the mention of
    	a 3rd book.  Did Card ever write the 3rd book, or discuss its
    	progress?  I just finished "Speaker" last week, and loved
    	both books.  I'm not sure I'll really care about Ender's
    	children, it was Ender I sympathized with and found interesting.
    	"Son of Ender" seems like it would be a case of the dreaded
    	Sequel's disease, where an author or filmmaker feels compelled
    	to do a sequel to anything successful, whether it merits it
    	or not.  I felt "Speaker" left Ender in peace in sort of a
    	"happily ever after" finish.  Although, I'm sure Card's
    	imagination in this case is more fertile than mine.  I'll
    	give it a try... BUT WHERE IS IT?
    
    	-rick

    Card has been busy with the tales of Alvin Maker ('Seventh Son',
    'Red Prophet', and ''Prentice Alvin' so far)

re .13:

Spoiler to Speaker warning:

Speaker did leave him in a gentle peace of mind, but left the planet
in trauma.  Remember, the ignorant federation-type people are heading
out there to blow the planet away.  (Forgive me, I read it months ago
and I ran through it so fast, I've forgotten most of the terminology,
but I believe you know what I mean.)

The third book will also be about the fourth, and final, addition to
the "Speaker for the Dead" <bible>.  That of the newest form of life
most inexplicable: Jane.  I'm sure the third book will be equally as
entertaining as the first two.  I read them together, probably with
more enthusiasm than anything else I've ever laid my eyes on.
Masterpieces!!  Essential to any collection!!!

>kms

    Yes, Jane!  I'll never forget her pain when he shut her off or his
    emptiness when he realized she was gone...
    
    I"m waiting patiently because if a book has Card as the author I
    buy it no questions asked, and not just because he grew up in nearby
    Greensboro, NC either...remember where Ender vacationed and they
    sent Valentine to talk to him?               
    
    However, bookstores around here leave a lot to be desired as far
    as SF goes, so ya'll keep me posted, ok?
    
    helen
    

    
    	After reading ENDER'S GAME and SPEAKER, I decided to read something
    	else by Card.  Found myself in the airport last week, and got his
    	FOLKS OF THE FRINGE.  The description likened it to A CANTICLE FOR
    	LIEBOWITZ, which I've yet to read, but I love post-apocolypse
    	stories.  
    
    	Well, I feel ripped off by FOLKS.  Card explains how he came
    	to put it together at the end of the book, and his admission
    	confirms the impression I got when I finished it.
    
    	FOLKS begins with a likable and interesting protaganist, and
    	an interesting, if well-worn, premise.  Once the initial journey
    	ends in Utah, we're switched to the next generation and never
    	return to find out what happened to the people we'd followed
    	through so many pages.  
    
    	The whole thing seemed incomplete to me, however well written.
    	
    	I will try some of Card's other, better known works.  ENDER
    	and SPEAKER were great, so one stinker won't ruin me on him.
    
    	-rick

    Re: .16
    
    Card gets a lot of local attention here in NC.  If you're hunting for a
    good SF bookstore, then trot on over to Chapel Hill and visit Second
    Foundation.  It's as good an SF shop as I've seen anywhere in the
    country.  They carry a very good used collection also.
    
    Ah, my first entry.
    
    Regards,
    
    Craig Maszer
    Chapel Hill, NC

    It's worth knowing that Card is a Mormon and this is where his rather
    gentle pastoral ethical viewpoint originates. It also shows where his
    knowledge of Mormonism in FOLK on THE FRINGE comes from.
    
    Dave Early.

    re -.1
    
    Not only was Scott a Morman, he was a Morman minister(?).

They don't have "Ministers" in the Mormon Church.


Steve (an ex Mormon)

    Perhaps that's "elder" then.  It was 5 years ago I was last a deacon in
    a secular humanist revival.  I can't remember the terminology he used.

    I remember reading in a couple of his bios that he did the required
    missionary service, but I don't remember reading that he was a
    clergyman.

I have been a big fan of Card ever since "I Put My Blue Genes On" appeared in
Analog back in the late 70's and I suspected that OSC was a pseudonym for Joe 
Haldeman. Happily they are two different people who both continue to write
great stuff! (although "The Hemingway Hoax" was a bit of a fizzler)

To those who would measure his work by FOLK, I agree with earlier complaints
about it, it starts with a good character who disappears much too soon. I have 
not yet read any of the Alvin Maker books (I somehow have managed to buy two
copies of "Seventh Son" which have vanished before I got to read them), but
I have read everything else which he has authored. It is 
certainly some of the best stuff I have ever read. "A Planet Called Treason" is
one of my favorites, one of the most imaginative books around. It
has been recently recycled as simply "Treason" (which bugs me no end, but that's
another rat-hole).

Card has a wonderful way of mixing humanism (LDS aside) with high-tech. He also
has a way of coming up with the most horrifying situations to make you 
empathize with the characters: the main character in the first part of FOLK
lives in eternal guilt for having helped keep his little brother and sister
in a closet for all their lives; everything that Ender has to endure; repeated
execution and reincarnation of Worthing in HOT SLEEP.

As far as morality goes, it is a strong theme throughout all his books, and he
manages to keep from preaching (mostly, anyway). I see the conclusion of 
"Ender's Game" as very cynical: "anything for the Cause" kind of thing. Card
is very realistic about the things people are willing to do to each other. He's
kind of like a nice Harlan Ellison.

    Re .24
    
    "A nice Harlan Ellison" is a good characterization, I think.
    Did you perhaps mean "humanity" rather than "humanism"?
    
    ESW

    IMHO, "A nice Harlan Ellison" is an oxymoron....  :+}
    
    Willie

re -.2: Nope, "humanism", as in "secular humanism". I'm not an expert on
comparative religion, so it may not be an issue to the Mormons, but some 
religions view anything you do on Earth as trivial. That's why confession
relieves you of any guilt for evil acts. Back a few centuries, secular humanism,
or the belief that being human counted for something and you should 
therefore be nice to people, was considered heresy for which you might 
forfeit various parts of your body, if not your life. Anyway, that's the way
I understand it. I'm still waiting for my philosophy degree to show up in 
a Cracker Jack box.

Was that a bolt of lightning??

    Re .27
    
    I don't mean to turn this into a history or philosophy topic, but a
    "belief that being human counted for something" a "few centuries back"
    was not the same belief as is called "secular humanism" today, and I'm
    not aware of anyone who was executed or mutilated for such a belief.
    
    There were, of course, the ferocious religious wars of the Reformation
    and Counter-Reformation, and neither side was often nice to the other,
    but it's exagerating to say that these folk regarded being "nice to 
    people" as heresy.
    
    There WAS an intense interest in "humanism" in the 16th and 17th
    centuries, but this was a scholarly and political interest in the
    *humanities,* literature and the arts, especially classical literature
    and art.  St. Thomas More and the monk Erasmus were humanists of this
    stripe.
    
    Getting back to Orson Scott Card, his fiction is so dominated by
    respect for righteous religions (and corresponding loathing of
    hypocritical religion) that I can't regard it as very secular, even if
    the features of the religion don't match Mormonism or mainline
    Protestantism.
    
    The bishop in "Speaker for the Dead" is a pain, but in the end turns
    out to be a moral person, and has his counterpoise in the Children of
    the Mind of Christ.  In the Alvin Maker series, we have the religion of
    the Indians and such folk as Alvin's mother contrasted with the
    delusions, hatred, and falsity of the water-power.  In "Hart's Hope,"
    the hero's task includes *rescuing* the gods.
    
    End of harangue.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

Thanks, Earl, I knew I would prod someone who knew more about it into saying
something. James Burke, in his book "The Day the Universe Changed" talks
briefly about humanism and its rise in Florence (forget which century), where
concern for life on earth took precedence over the spiritual. This
correspondingly caused changes in the way religion was promulgated, since now
there was some serious competition for the hearts and minds of the huddled
masses. I seem to recall him mentioning Inquisition in there, but it may not
be quite as bad as the infamous Spanish Inquisition.

I was rather surprised when I first heard that Card was a Mormon, but that was
due to my own ignorance about Mormonism. Since then, my brother-in-law
and my wife's doctor are Mormons (8 and 10 kids, respectively), so I have
been enlightened a little. My experience with religion and SF was the son of a
Baptist minister whom I corrupted by loaning my books (we had to remove the
covers so his parents wouldn't see them). I'll have to check out that note
on SF and Christianity, looks interesting...

    Card used to do a show at cons called "The Secular Humanist
    Revival" (there's a note about it in here somewhere), where he
    preaches the SH creed in the good-ole fire-and-brimstone style.
    
    I doubt that he still believes it, though.  The last time
    I saw him was at a panel discussion on religion in SF, where he
    absolutely blasted religious tolerance as a tenet.  Tolerance
    seemed to amount to tolerance of error in his eyes.  It was kind
    of embarassing, actually.  The rest of the panelists were aghast,
    but no one was willing to stand up for the US Constitution.
    
    /jlr

    Re .30
    
    I'd need to hear more from the panel discussion before I could tell if
    Card had changed his mind.  There are different definitions of
    "tolerance," after all.  There's the "I disagree with what you say but
    will defend to the death your right to say it" tolerance, and then
    there's the "I value your beliefs as much as my own" tolerance, and
    then there's the "It's rude to argue against or denounce anyone's
    doctrines" tolerance.
    
    The second is equivalent to agnosticism if carried through without
    qualification, and the third can hardly be carried out consistently at
    all and still permit any discussion of ideology or philosophy.  Card
    might, for instance, be in favor of the first but not the second or
    third.
    
    As I recall his "secular humanist revival," his expressed motive was
    that he wanted to see unpopular positions like Secular Humanism remain
    free to be expressed, since he knows his own Mormonism for another
    unpopular position; if the one is in danger, so is the other.  
    
    Earl Wajenberg

> if the one is in danger, so is the other.

Really! I don't know much about the history of Mormonism, but judging from 
the stories in "Folk of the Fringe" (which may not be the best resource), one
would think that some view it as akin to devil worship or something. I would 
expect tolerance to be high on the list of virtues under such conditions.
While you can't always measure an author's personality from his work, I would
be quite surprised if Card was intolerant of religious tolerance. I've never
viewed the Mormon's as a particularly militant sect; other than the guys
on bikes (no, they are *not* CIA or FBI), they have always seemed to keep
pretty much to themselves.

Dean Ing has written a series of novels detailing how the Mormons
pulled the US out of post-nuclear holocaust. I'm not sure if that's out of
practical or religious belief. Ing is something of a survivalist,
and the Mormons are constantly stocking up against the Apocolypse. His 
portrayal of them shows them to be pretty fair-minded (if hard-nosed) types
(again, this may not be the best resource for evaluating a religious group!).

BTW, I support the Constitution and the Bill of Rights! (in case there was any
doubt...)