Speaker for the Dead is almost as good as Ender's Game (enough so to make it one of my favorite SciFi novels) but the rest of the books are terrible. As are most of his other books - compulsively readable as my 15 year old self could tell you, but ranging from no-there-there (Wyrms) to creeptastic (Songmaster). But if my current copy of Ender's Game gets lost, I will buy another one, even though I have it on Kindle as well. Because though I hate his stance on The Issues and would love for him to shush, Ender's Game was undoubtedly the most important book of my childhood. And I have seen dozens of students find it equally inspiring. The book, in this case, is more importantly positive than the man is negative. At least to me.
But yeah. Skip all the rest.
There are people who claim the Bean books (Ender's Shadow etc) are as good or better than the Ender sequels, but those people should not be trusted and probably also liked the Dune prequels.
Word. I only read Enders Shadow but then I had to pretend it didn't exist because it made me enjoy the original less.
Speaker for the Dead is almost as good as Ender's Game (enough so to make it one of my favorite SciFi novels) but the rest of the books are terrible.
Yeah, I love
Speaker for the Dead,
and
Xenocide
is okay, and
Children of the Mind
is awful. I also love
Ender's Shadow,
but the rest of the Bean books get progressively worse too. And yet I still own them for completism (bought used, so no money to OSC). I also love
Pastwatch.
And if/when I buy it to own it, it'll be used.
Card gets no more of my money ever, but I don't feel strongly enough about it to form a picket line outside the theater or anything.
Ender's Shadow is one of the few books I have literally thrown across a room. I was willing to put up with the shitty writing, but the character assassination of Petra was just too much for me.
I don't remember that in the first book, but I was definitely irritated with how he handled her in the later books. It's been a long time since I've read them.
I am with Matt as regards to disbursement of my money in the future. Ender's Game was
excellent,
Speaker for the Dead was very good, and the man is not just someone I disagree with, he's someone who's fighting to disenfranchise human beings. I don't think any books are more important to me than that, but I'll keep evaluating books as I read them.
I read a few of his other books before I knew anything about the guy, but there was enough there there for me to engage in "is this guy alright???" conversation with other sci fi reading friends. I cooled on him during Alvin Maker, I think.
I have never read one thing by him. I think I started Ender's Game years ago but never finished it.
You can get any of his books you wish used, which avoids him getting any of your money. Or, if ownership of books is not important to it, you can get it in your local library, being careful not to put wear and tear on it, and being careful to return it on time so you are not encouraging them to buy more. Possibly in the library case, your best bet is to read it in the library so you do not add to the list of the number of people checking it out.
