Empire (book)

I have now read thirteen books by Orson Scott Card. Next to Dean Koontz, he is my most read author. I think I've decided that will change after reading Empire.

First, let me give you my rating. When it comes to fiction, I think you should know what I thought of a book before reading why.

My Rating: 2.5/5
My Recommendation: Skip It

Okay, now that you're going to skip this book (because you hang on my every word and recommendation), you won't mind a few spoilers.

This book started off great. Terrorists, presidential assassinations, guns, explosions, etc. And to top it off there was some great insight into how our democracy in America is devided between blue-staters and red-staters. Actually very interesting stuff.

And then the mechs came in. There is NOTHING in this book to suggest that it is in the future. As far as you, the reader, are concerned, this is modern day. There is no mention of anyone having any kind of superior technology, but suddenly men in ROBOT COSTUMES start destroying New York City. Are you KIDDING ME? It was like Robot Jox suddenly jumped into an up-until-then great book.

Okay, so the rest of the book had been good so far, maybe I can overlook the absurdity of mech warriors. So the main character drives away and looks in his rear-view mirror, only to see that he is being chased by HOVER BIKES. WhAt?!?! Where did those come from? Since when do we have the technology for hover bikes? There was no mention of this sort of technology existing in the world Card created. Not to mention that the fact that they hovered played NO part in the plot.

These two outrageous things made the book cheesy and absurd and I found it difficult to digest the rest of the book. And I haven't even mentioned the fact that after half the book was done, he killed off the MAIN CHARACTER (sorry, I told you there'd be spoilers)! You don't just get a reader invested in someone and then kill him off. After that it was difficult to keep reading because you just didn't care about the rest of the side-characters who were now taking over the remainder of the plot.

On the lighter side, Card had some great political isight. His whole idea about how America just might end up in a civil war seemed fairly plausible and intreguing. Along with that, I really enjoyed his layers and layers of stories. This was not a one-dimensional story (this happened, then that happened), but it was deep and intricate, even if often predictable.

It took me 6 months to read this book. I think I read 2 or 3 complete other books while reading this one because I couldn't seem to get through it. I blame Christmas for making me finish it finally--I got some new books and I wanted to tie up loose ends before starting on the new stuff.

Another thing that I have noticed with Card lately is this (warning, blatant bragging and pride about to come forth): I feel that I can write as good as or better than OSC. He's not a terrible author by any means--I wouldn't have read 13 of his books if he was--but I do feel that his writing is inferior to other authors I've read, Dean Koontz, Stephen Gould, Stephen King, to name a few. There are so many times that I read a passage and find myself jarred out of the story thinking "I could write that so much better." When that happens, I've stopped reading, I've stopped believing the book is temporarily real. I don't profess to be the best author on earth, I mean, hey, look how many novels I've published. But this is a recocurring thing with OSC: when I read his books, all I can think about is that I can do better.

So why 2.5 stars? Like I said, it wasn't ALL bad. There were quite a few redeeming values and parts of it were somewhat entertaining on some levels. I've read MUCH worse books. But remember, 2.5 is still 50%. That's an "F" in my line of work.

My recommendaiton: Skip this book. If you like (or want to like) OSC, go read the Ender's series. While I'm unhappy with OSC at this moment I still claim that the Speaker for the Dead series are some of my most favorite books I've ever read.