Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Speaker for the Read

Book Lists. Just about everyone's got 'em. Books you want to read, books you have read and recommend others read, books your mom or dad read to you... The list of lists goes on.

Well, I have a list. Or two or three, actually. But in this case, I'm referring to one specific list. It isn't actually codified, or fixed, but it's a running tally in my head. Let's call it my list of shame. This is a list of books that I not only WANT to read, but am ashamed to admit never HAVE read. Let's not go into all of the entries, or you might lose all respect for me.

There are many books on this list. Some are books I believe EVERYONE should read, or at least be familiar with. Others are genre specific -- books that should be read if you consider yourself a fan of a given genre.

Well, this week I get to cross a book off of the latter list. It's a book that I have long had an interest in, but finally my good friend Brian (aka Lurch in the comments) gave me as a gift on his recent visit. I started reading it Monday night, read it on the bus and on breaks yesterday, and polished it off last night.

As a long time Sci Fi fan, particularly military Sci Fi, I am ashamed to say that it took me until my 36th year to be able to proudly say, I have read Ender's Game. What a read!

I have to admit that there were a couple of things that disappointed me. One of them was the ease with which I deduced a couple of plot twists that were supposed to be surprises (I won't spoil it for anyone by saying which ones). The other was that I struggled with a suspension of disbelief in accepting some of the dialogue, both internal and external, as being consistent with the age of the characters, regardless of their life experience. But these were minor irritants, and overall I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the genre.