"Children of the Mind (Ender's Saga #4)" by Orson Scott Card, 1996

"Children of the Mind (Ender's Saga #4)" by Orson Scott Card, 1996


Children of the Mind is the fourth installment and conclusion in the Ender's Game series. Originally the second half of Xenocide, the third installment in the Ender's Game series, it was split into a separate novel.


Jane, the evolved computer artificial intelligence living the computer networks of the Hundred Worlds of the Starway Congress, is racing to find a way to transfer her aiua or soul into another body, human, pequenino, or bugger before the ansible is shut down.


Peter Wiggin, a creation of sorts by Ender, along with Wang-Mu of the planet Path, travel from world to world instantaneously through Jane's newly developed ability of transporting people and ships faster than light. Peter and Wang-Mu hope to convince highly regarded philosophers to sway the Starways Congress to call off the fleet ordered to destroy the planet Lusitania.


Meanwhile, Miro and Val-Jane travel the stars through Jane's new faster-than-light ability to search for colonizable planets for pequeninos, buggers, and Lusitanian humans to escape to in preparation of the impending destruction of the planet Lusitania.


Ela and Quara, two of Ender's adopted children who are brilliant Xenobioligists from Lusitania, travel to a planet where the "descolada" virus may have originated from to try to communicate with the Descoladores, a new and possibly sentient species introduced in this novel, to stop attacking other inhabited worlds.


The blend of science fiction with philosophy was slightly heavy and somewhat detracted from my full enjoyment of the story. The preachiness peppered throughout the book was less of a religious nature, which was predominant in Xenocide, but rather more of mind, body and soul.


Ideas and questions like "what makes a person a person?", and "are you a part of your soul who lives in you and makes you moral being?", or "are you merely a collection of memories?" are presented head on in this book and quite uniquely.


There is a bittersweet feeling that lingers with me after reading the end of the novel. All the outstanding questions, along with minutiae, stemming from the previous three books are resolved with a sense of peace that follows a life of imbroglio. As the saying goes, a good life is a messy life, so goes this novel.


My rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5 stars)

“Piper in the Woods” by Philip K. Dick, 1953

“Piper in the Woods” by Philip K. Dick, 1953

Henry Harris, an army doctor on Earth, receive a patient who, after returning from a mission on asteroid Y-3, claims to be a plant. Harris’ diagnosis of post-traumatic stress syndrome was dispelled when a several more soldiers returning from asteroid Y-3 exhibit the same symptoms—the soldiers claim they are plants, they sit in basking in the sun during daylight hours, remain in a catatonic state at nighttime hours, and refuse to perform any kind of work.

Harris travels to asteroid Y-3 and investigates for a cause of the soldier’s conditions and learns from the soldiers of an indigenous people living in the woods called “Pipers”, and that it was the “Pipers” who made the soldiers realize they were plants.

Harris ventures out to the woods and meets an indigene woman. The woman seems gracefully beautiful yet mysterious. She leads him deeper into the wood with promise of a meeting with the Piper.

Harris returns to earth and decides that the “Pipers” were created by the soldiers to cope with their high-pressured military jobs; allowing them to simply “tune out” and relax by turning into plants. Harris contemplates all the work that lies ahead of him as he unpacks his suitcases, which, rather than contain clothes, contain soil from Asteroid Y-3. Harris spreads the soil on the floor, sat squarely in the middle like a plant, and goes to sleep.

This science fiction short story seems fairly straight forward. The characters were relatively well developed given the number of pages. I can see this story as a basis of a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits television episode. I surely would recommend adding this to your reading list of short stories.

My rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5 stars)

Here is a link to the full story:http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Piper_in_the_Woods

“The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, 1898

“The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, 1898

Told through a third-party narrator, the story is about a governess who is hired to watch over two children, Miles and Flora, in a manor named Bly in Essex. The kids are charming at all accounts with the exception of Miles expelled from school for reasons that are never clear.


Life at Bly proceeds normally until two strangers, later to be identified as Peter Quint and Miss Jessel, start materializing on the grounds of Bly, and then vanishing just as quickly.


We later learn from Mrs. Grose, the person in charge of all things “below stairs”, that Peter Quint, the valet, was Miss Jessel’s hunky stud, and Miss Jessel was the previous governess to the children. The problem is, Peter Quint and Miss Jessel, are both dead.


Throughout the entire book, the governess is the only person who actually sees the two ghosts, or is, for any account, the only person who will admit to seeing the apparitions. For this reason, a plentitude of scholarly discussions, whether this is a ghost story or a story of a mad woman’s downward spiral into dementia, exists.


Personally, I thought of the book as a ghost story because of the fact Mrs. Grose had so easily been able to put a name to the detailed descriptions of the ghosts who the governess describes, but had never seen before. Other readers, though, may disagree on this, and it is very much, I suppose, open to interpretation.


“The Turn of the Screw” is around 120 pages, a short but clever story, and still the author manages to make the two children with angelic exteriors, Miles and Flora, at times seem rather sinister. Were Miles and Flora really aware of the ghosts? Were the children hiding dark secrets of sexual abuse? Did the Miles witness and commit homosexual acts; encouraging other boys at school which led to his expulsion?


All told, I would have to say the novel is an uncommonly good story and is one that tends to stay with the reader (me anyway) even after the final and rather abruptly shocking page has been turned.


My rating: ★★★★★ (5 out of 5 stars)

“Xenocide (Ender’s Saga #3) ” by Orson Scott Card, 1991

“Xenocide (Ender’s Saga #3) ” by Orson Scott Card, 1991

The story takes place on two planets; the Catholic colony world of Lusitania, home of the porcine indigenes known as the pequeninos and the Chinese Taoist colony world of Path, home of genetically modified humans. The human colonists on Lusitania are racing to find a solution to the “descolada”, a virus necessary to the three-stage life cycle of the pequeninos but fatal to human beings, before the Starways Congress fleet to destroy Lusitania arrives.

The introduction of subatomic particles the author has invented called “philotes” links everything together and is utilized by the “ansibles” for faster than light communications in the Ender universe, gives rise to the question of faster than light travel. Within the “ansibles”, “philotes”, and computers of the “hundred worlds”, Jane an evolved artificial intelligence with whom Ender and the other aliens are in communication, comes to question her sentience and attempts to develop faster-than-light travel.

With help from the world of Path, the xenobiologists on Lusitania find the solution to the “descolada” and in part also discovering the solution to the “super obsessive-compulsive disorder gene” problem suffered on Path. And with the help of the other aliens, the buggers and the pequeninos, Jane develops faster than light travel; enabling the physical transport and exchange of the “solutions” between the worlds of Path and Lusitania before the arrival of the Starways Congress fleet.

While themes of duty and absolution pervade the novel, the question of the very nature of life itself is at the heart of the novel. Although Xenocide is long with frequent, irksome, and interminable theological/philosophical interludes and wrestles with fundamental questions of faith and free will, it was quite an enjoyable read.

My rating: ★★★★★ (5 out of 5 stars)




Fan art:

 

“Glory (Podvig:Подвиг)“ by Vladimir Nabokov, 1931

“Glory (Podvig:Подвиг)“ by Vladimir Nabokov, 1931


Glory is a tale of adventure and "coming of age" during pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg. We follow the life and development of Martin Edelweiss, a Swiss-Russian, from childhood to university graduate of Cambridge in England. As the years pass, Martin finds himself in situations, with increasing loftiness and grandiosity, where he feels the need to conquer in order to achieve, in his eyes, a sort of heroic status. Much akin to the “perfect throw” in football—whatever that is.


The crux of the problem is the impotence of the main character; that being, the drive and ambitions without the means and wherewithal to accomplish. Atop those dispositions, there is nothing of notable account about Martin. I found difficulty in growing attached to the protagonist.

With leitmotifs of “light and dark”, “winding paths that disappear into the forest”, “the sound of water”, and the various modes of “journey”, a fairy-tale like quality to the novel is stylistically painted and lends to the enchantment of the story.

However, I found the development of the story sleepy and the stark conclusion dissatisfying. There are some nice turns of phrase and trademark drollery, but an uninspired protagonist and subtle multiplicity of meaning absent made a rather weak story. Overall I found nothing compelling about the novel.



My rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5 stars) 

"The Currents of Space (Galactic Empire #2)" by Isaac Asimov, 1952

"The Currents of Space (Galactic Empire #2)" by Isaac Asimov, 1952

The story's backdrop takes place during Trantor's rise to Galactic Empire. The plot opens with a "spatio-analyst" earthling named Rik left on the planet Florinia after his mind was scrambled by a botched "psycho-probe" session and a woman named Valona to care for him and keep him out of trouble.

The story unfolds as Riks memory slowly returns and as his memory returns the danger and plot thickens. The interplay between flashbacks and the current time frame builds depth in the mystery and assists in connecting characters together while moving the story along.

Categorized as science fiction, I found this book more like a mystery or detective novel. Hints of espionage, major amnesia, political crisis, and government interdictions spells "The Borne Identity" but without the ass-kicking action-- typical of an Asimov novel, all talk no action.

I found the book somewhere between bland and enjoyable. The switching between flashbacks and current time frame isn't always apparent until a couple of paragraphs in the chapter was a bit annoying; causing me to backtrack some paragraphs back.

My rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5 stars)

"Mr. Spaceship" by Philip K. Dick, 1953

"Mr. Spaceship" by Philip K. Dick, 1953

Earth is at the losing end of a war with an alien race, called Yuks, who are able traverse the universe without spaceships. To turn tides, Earth's military engineer Kramer devices a method of installing a human brain into a man made mechanical spaceship.

Professor Thomas, who is in the declining years of his life, volunteers to transplant his brain into the spaceship and to strike at the emeny. However, after brain transplant, Professor Thomas kidnaps Kramer and Kramer's ex-wife Dolores.

Instead of war, Professor Thomas decided a regenesis of the human race, with Kramer and Dolores cast as "Adam & Eve", on a far away planet would reevolve the human race sans the cultural proclivity to war.

Other than the ending of the story feeling a bit rushed and "cheesy", it is short and straight forward, and the story is an enjoyable read in-between longer novels.

My rating: ★★★☆☆ (3 out of 5 stars)