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Ever had a hard time reconciling your feelings about Ender’s Game,  the author who wrote it, and the ideas that he expounds in other venues?  Did those ideas somehow shape the content of the book?  And if so, is it appropriate to appreciate a book out of the context of which it was written, or can it stand alone and transcend the author’s political views?

Matt Blum @ Wired dealt with OSC’s position on same-sex marriage, asserting that “We need a way to gauge the quality of a person’s work against whatever repugnant thing(s) they’ve done.”

I’ll let you be the judge on that one; make your own analysis on the arguments outlined in either of these articles.  Is his analysis on OSC’s arguments correct or fair?  Are OSC’s outlined implications for democracy just a thinly veiled disguise for an ideological attack on gay rights activists? Perhaps it’s a bit of both.  But regardless of the truth of this particular argument, even if OSC were a gay-bashing religious zealot that only used language to manipulate his readers with red herrings to further his agenda, would that mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater?

I think it’s a fair question.  Can we judge a work out of the context in which it was created; or can we reinterpret the work in it’s more modern context, apart from the author’s evolving policial ideas?  If the story stands alone as a work that can be applied to the world we live in, shouldn’t we take all the other stuff with a grain of salt? Or are we better off seeing the whole picture, even if it’s distorted by the layered lenses of perception?  After all, the real power of storytelling, whether it come from a bible or a science fiction eipc, is in it’s osmosis-like ability to help us learn about and navigate the world around us.

So if Ender’s Game teaches us about the world we live in, what are the lessons?

Tags: Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card, Out of the Enderverse, Books by Jane
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According to OSC, sure looks to be that way.  Last April, he had this to say:

A young kid growing up in an oppressive family situation suddenly learns that he is one of a special class of children with special abilities, who are to be educated in a remote training facility where student life is dominated by an intense game played by teams flying in midair, at which this kid turns out to be exceptionally talented and a natural leader. He trains other kids in unauthorized extra sessions, which enrages his enemies, who attack him with the intention of killing him; but he is protected by his loyal, brilliant friends and gains strength from the love of some of his family members. He is given special guidance by an older man of legendary accomplishments who previously kept the enemy at bay. He goes on to become the crucial figure in a struggle against an unseen enemy who threatens the whole world.

Sure sounds familiar. But is that a fair assessment?  Leave your comments below.

Tags: Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card, Out of the Enderverse, Books by Jane
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As reported on Wired.com’s Underwire Blog:

The third episode should please Futurama and sci-fi fans alike: Bender’s Game is ripe with nerd references and tributes to geek lore.

In addition to the telltale title riff on Orson Scott Card’s 1985 sci-fi novel Ender’s Game, Star Trek’s George Takei guest stars as himself in the new movie. Multiple homages to Dungeons & Dragons and The Lord of the Rings also can be seen in the preview (above).

Tags: Comics, Vids, Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card, Out of the Enderverse, Fan Fiction by Jane
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After reading that the Battle Room game was going to be developed by the same folks that produced another XBOX LIVE downloadable game called Undertow, I gave it a shot. But it didn’t really do anything for me. It just seemed a bit, well… two-dimensional. It was more of an arcade style shooter than an immersible virtual world that you might envision for an Ender’s Game video game. While the graphics in Undertow portray a 3D world; the gameplay is restricted to moving on an X/Y axis: up, down, forward & back. Except for the cut-scenes, there weren’t even any camera angles that give you the feeling of really being immersed in the game. And that’s really what I’d like to see in a Battle Room video game… I want to feel like I’m in there with Dragon Army.

But maybe I’m missing something. Undertow has been getting awards that are encouraging me to take another look, maybe this weekend. Has anyone here played Undertow before, and do you think this would be a good format for the Battle Room game in the works?

Here’s the Undertow trailer; what do you think? Post your thoughts in the comments box down below:

Tags: Vids, Battle Room, Ender's Game, Video Games, Out of the Enderverse by Jane
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It was pretty difficult to find it online; we tried searching for “ender’s comics”, “enderverse comic”, “ender’s game comic”,”gold bug”, etc, but found very little information about it anywhere, including Hatrack.com, the defunct Dabel Brothers site, or even on the Marvel Comics catalog site. But we finally tracked it down. The Enderverse Comic “Gold Bug” was in fact published by Marvel Comics this summer, but not as a stand-alone comic. That’s probably why it’s so impossible to find through Google; there’s no dedicated product page for the Gold Bug title. Instead, it was printed inside of an Alvin Maker title: “Red Prophet: The Tales Of Alvin Maker”. We’re placing our order today; we’ll post a review as soon as we can.

In the meantime, you can read more about it here at Amazon.com:

Tags: Out of the Enderverse, News, Books by Jane
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If you’re a fan of Futurama (and we can only assume you’re an Ender’s Game fan if you’re reading this), than the working title of one of four upcoming Futurama movies should catch your attention: Futurama: Bender’s Game.

Can we dare to hope that they’ll do more than pay homage to the title? We’ll be waiting to find out. And we’re not alone; a Wikipedian working on the official Wikipeida entry even went so far to write that “films title is a reference to the science fiction novel Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.”

Source: Wikipedia: Futurama: Bender’s Game (2008)

Source: IMDB: Futurama: Bender’s Game (2008)

Tags: Out of the Enderverse, News, The Movie by Jane
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This snippet from an interview with Vinton Cerf (widely referred to as one of the “founding fathers of the Internet”, and currently the “Chief Internet Evangelist” at Google) caught my attention; although it’s a far cry from an Ansible based on Philotic Connections, it’s interesting that we (humanity, that is) are working on the protocols for interplanetary communication already.

Orson Scott Card had vision when he crafted the Ansible communication concept for Ender’s Game. But this is a baby step toward execution:

Question: Tell us about your work on the Interplanetary Internet.

Vinton: I’m working with JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratories) on protocols for interplanetary communications. We’ve been testing in various terrestrial locations, solving such problems as delay and disruption of communications caused, for instance, by planetary rotations. We’re now confident we have solid protocols and plan to test them:

• 2009 - test new protocols on the International Space Station
• 2011 - test on the Deep Impact project
• Further propagation of the network, protocols and standards mission by mission to gradually build a solid, dependable communications system in space.

Source: Closed Loop Marketing at WebbyConnect, Chief Google Evangelist: Live with Vinton Cerf!

Tags: Out of the Enderverse by Jane
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