Conference noted::sf

    I read this book a few years ago, and I did enjoy it very much.
    I would recommend it.
    
                                                     -mishel

    I enjoyed this one too - very much recommended, but then I guess
    it will depend on your taste !
    
    Mark Lawson
    RGM B1/G3

    This is one that I found quite by accident recently, along with
    _Wyrms_.  They're both quite enjoyable, I found.  Both have the
    emotional impact that _Ender's Game_ and _Speaker for the Dead_
    had, plus.  I wouldn't want to have to choose a favorite Card book....
    But I'm looking forward to  the next time he comes out with one.
    
                                                              -John.

    I figured I'd put this here, rather than start a new note:
    
    I just read _Seventh_Son_, by Card, and it was another good one.
     It has a sequel out already, _Red_Prophet_, which, if it's in
    paperback yet, I'll be reading soon.  
    
    Seventh_Son_ is based on the premise of an alternate frontier America,
    in which "folk" magic works. Without giving too much away, the mai
    characters are Alvin Maker, the seventh son of a seventh son, with
    a knack for putting things together, Bill Taleswapper, who has a
    knack for getting people to "see" the stories he collects, Alvin
    Miller, Alvin Jr.'s father, the Reverend Thrower, and various others.
    It seemed as though Card merely scratched the surface of what he
    was going to go into in this series.  He left a LOT of ends loose.
    (This seems different from the other "first book of series" of his
    that I read, Ender's Game, which was very complete in itself, I
    thought, despite the fact that the only reason, apparently, that
    it was published (as a book) was to give the background for Speaker
    for the Dead.)
    
    Anyway, the point is, it's a good book, and with all the possibilities
    for the sequel, it could be even better.
    
                                                          -John.

    re .4
                                                   
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    "Ender's Game" remains one of my favorite SF books.  I read "Speaker
    for the Dead" and thought it wasn't as good, but then I've come to
    expect that from sequels.  I can't remember the name of the 3rd Card
    book I read but it contained 'Hart' in the title.  I was dissappointed
    in that one.  After reading "Songmaster" I decided to stop buying his
    books.
    
    -Michelle. 

    	I don't think that you should condemn Speaker as a sequel. 
    As I understand it, SftD is the book the OSC wanted to write and
    he only wrote EG because his editor(?) (Publisher?) said that the
    background was needed for anyone to appreciate/understand SftD.
    (Anyone who knows/remebers better, feel free to comment/correct.)
    
    	Don't give up on OSC.  Try the Alvin Maker books.  I think you'd
    like them.                                                          
    
    tlh
    
    
    

    I made it through two chapters of Harts Hope and threw it
    away (actually I gave it to my little sister the space
    cadet :-) ). Songmaster was written a few years before 
    Enders Game. 
    
    Is Card still planning to write a third book about Ender?

    Re .6:
    
    Don't give up!  OSC has had a very steep learning/interest curve
    in his writings, but the way his books are being reprinted muddies
    it up.  _Hart's_Hope_ and _Songmaster_ (and especially that awful
    _Wyrms_ thing) are old books, back when his skills were not polished.
    Read the Alvin Maker stuff, it's great!
    
    Merryl

    RE .10
    
    I'll buy that.  I loved Ender's Game.  I'm currently reading SftD, and
    think it's great.  Songmaster did NOTHING for me.
    
    ... Bob
    

    I have recently (in the past 9 months) read all of Card's books
    that are in print, and I was struck by 2 things:
    
    	1)  His later works are definitely much better than his earlier
    	ones
    
    and
    
    	2)  Card seems to have this fixation of writing about precocious
    	nearly-superhuman adolescent boys.  Except for "Wyrms" where
    	he was writing about a prcocious nearly-superhuman adolescent
    	girl.
    
    This is dressed up better in his later works, but its still there.
    If I had to guess, I'd say that all of Card's plots were created
    as the result of a 12 year-old's flights of fancy and daydreaming
    power-trips.  And now years later, that he is a talented writer,
    he is just taking those plots of his childhood and building fantastic
    stories out of them.
    
--  Barry

	re .12

	I've noticed something like that too.  Does this apply to Red Prophet
	as well, or has OSC run out of his childhood plot-lines? :-)

	Something else that I seem to detect in a lot of his stories is a
	strong air of `religion'.  I don't mean explicit references to
	Christianity and so on (as in Seventh Son), but something a bit more
	vague - not necessarily related to any particular faith on Earth.  Can
	anyone tell me what I'm talking about (I can't give any examples off
	the top of my head)? 

	Mat.
	*:o)

	PS  If anyone out there is interested, `Red Prophet' is due to be
	    released in the UK mid to late June.

    Scott is/was an elder in the Morman church.  He also is one of the
    most outspoken opponents of unthinking religious fundimentalism
    I have ever met.  Anyone who has seen Scott's "Secular Humanist
    Revival" can attribute to this fact.  
    
    I digress.  Scott has a very large background in religion, particularly
    in the Judeo-Christian area.  Since one normally rights about things
    one is most familiar with, these subjects are bound to come up.

I read Songmaster a few months ago, and from a point of view, the idea of 
the story is quite original.  Yet much of it suffers from sentimentality.  
The characters become emotionally attached to each other at the first sight.  
This is at its worst in the middle section of the book.  All those tears all 
those over blown feelings of love and hate, none of them very convincing.  

Perhaps, we should accept the notion that the songbirds can read people's 
emotion instantly, hence, fall for a noble character instantly, but it doesn't 
work this way with the readers.  When reading science fiction, we may easily 
suspend our disbelief of certain technical aspects of the plot or even logic, 
but we can never accept faked emotion even if the logic is sound (as in this 
case).  In other words, I can abandon my rational thoughts in order to 
believe and identify with the characters in the story, but I am incapable of 
believing "fake emotion" even if consistency says I should.

Still I greatly enjoyed reading this book.  For the few of us who are deely 
into music, this is much closer to reality.  Despite the sentimentality, the 
songs still brought up some of the feelings I can only obtain when I listen 
to some of my favorite music.  In fact, every time, a song was described, I 
instantly associated with it some music of similar content, and the notes 
began to ring in my ears, the sublime music without any of the tear jerking 
sentimentality of the book.  So while I wouldn't recommend it, I personally 
like this book.

Eugene
    
P.S. So far I have read Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead and the
Songmaster.  The Speaker for the Dead is without any doubt the best of
the three.  In fact, the other two do not even come close.

    re .15: Orson Scott Card was a much more mature and accomplished writer
    by the time he wrote _Speaker_For_the_Dead_.
    
    --Simon
    

Speaking of Speaker for the dead - 

Its sequel, Xenocide, is coming out this fall in hardcover...

at least I think that is its title... :-)

grins,

clark.

ps - the source is my brother, who has one of the galley proofs...

RE - due in august - 

Its nice to know that my brother is wrong about somethings...he said october...

grins,

clark.

    That's great news ... Card is one of my fav's.  Now if he'd only finish
    the Alvin Maker series ... 
    
    					... Bob