Andrew “Ender” Wiggin. Since Orson Scott Card wrote Ender’s Game, thousands upon thousands of young people have read it and thought “I am Ender.” Brilliant (we’d all love to be as bright as Ender), picked on, manipulated, misunderstood, yet ultimately triumphant (sort of?)… it’s easy to identify with him. The series continues through a number of other books, but I think it’s best to read Ender’s Game as a standalone at first. The next few books pick up much later in Ender’s life, and are pretty different in environment and feel. They’re good, but they’re different… don’t dive right into […]
Monthly Archives: September 2013
3 posts
I just read this fantastic article by Kristine Kathryn Rusch on A Career vs. Publication. If you’re an author, a wanna be author, a just-for-fun writer, or have ever thought about writing, go read it. You might have noticed that the publishing world is changing pretty quickly these days. Among other upheavals, indie publishing has become not just an option, but a good option. As writing blogs, conventions, and advice proliferate, both online and in the real world, there is a lot of advice out there. Have you ever tried to parse through that advice to find what will work […]
Returning to my love of classics, The Count of Monte Cristo was one of my earliest favorites. Like Jean Valjean, protagonist Edmond Dantès was imprisoned. Unlike Valjean, he had not committed a crime at all (as opposed to Valjean’s technically criminal but completely sympathetic theft of a loaf of bread) – Dantès is the innocent victim of another men’s greed, jealousy, and cowardice. Dantès and Valjean diverge even more in their reactions to imprisonment. After six years in solitary confinement, Dantès despairs, attempting to starve himself to death. However, he eventually is able to covertly communicate with a prisoner in a neighboring cell, Abbé Faria (“The […]