Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy (Book)

Once upon a time there was a book called Douglas Adams written by a guy called Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy. Lots of SCI-FI fanatics loved this book. It was later turned into a movie that was kind of random, nonsensical, not very funny, and pointless.

But this is a review of the book, not the movie.

HHGTtG (hooray acronyms) is meant to be read as a comedy book. And as such, it lacks any real form of plot such as the kind you would find in any Star Trek or Star Wars movie. For that matter anyway, the book also lacks any real conflict, tension, or suspense, and the plot is basically pointless until the last quarter when there is a small revelation that puts the whole sequence of events into perspective but then the book just quickly ends. If the book didn't have that revelation, the whole story would basically be, 'earth man gets world destroyed --> hops on a ship of random alien men --> they frolic around the galaxy for no apparent reason --> the end.' Actually, that's pretty much the entire story, in both the book and the movie, minus the plot revelation.

Since there's no real conflict in the story, the movie tried to fix that by adding in a whole subplot where the crew go save one of their fellow kidnapped crew members from ugly aliens on an enemy world. This didn't really save the movie, but just turned out to be a pointless attempt to add a plot to a comedy story that didn't have one.

Speaking of which, the comedy in the book falls under two categories: narrator comedy, where the author goes off into whimsical facts about this odd universe where everything is so ironic, or, situation comedy, where strange things happen to the characters or they make jokes and have quirky mannerisms.
Narrator comedy works fairly well, but to me, it easily seems to fall under the pretentious category and as such, I can't enjoy it as much while the author blabbles off about space ships and galactic wars about a misunderstood transmission from a planet never yet discovered.
The situation comedy works better for me, but most often times the characters seem to fail to be characters just to create these oddly comical scenes for the narrator.

In the end however, I would recommend the book, as it does have its truly funny laugh-out-loud moments, but as a coherent story, there's not much substance here.
Final Score: 8.1/10

Short Stories of Isaac Asimov

(The guy who made the book called "I robot" which was turned into a less-than-deep science fiction movie)

The Last Question
Two scientists ask the megalopolis-sized computer named Multivac the most important question of all time: 'Can entropy ever be reversed?', that is, can we ever stop the universe from dying down and ending all life as we know it? Millions of years pass while humanity sprawls across the known universe, yet Multivac still cannot answer this question. The scientists of each generation become increasingly worried by the prospect that the trillion/zillions of humans will eventually die if we don't answer this question. Can they find an answer?
Worth Reading? Yes.

Jokester
This story also contains Multivac, but it really has nothing to do with the other story. In this story, a scientist loves to tell jokes, because that's the only way he finds himself socially acceptable among his peers. When doing this, he becomes interested in the nature of humor and all jokes since the dawn of time. It is through this that he realizes that he has never heard anyone create a genuinely unique joke. All the jokes people come up with are either bad puns or retellings of old jokes in new settings. He asks Multivac who made up the original jokes, that is, where did the first jokes come from? Once again, you have to read it to find the answer out.
Worth Reading? Probably.

Nightfall
In a world where there is no night, humans on a planet orbited by five suns finally come to a technological advance in astronomy to predict a day where all five suns will finally be eclipsed by a moon that was never previously visible during the day. During this day, mythical objects called 'stars' are prophesied to appear which will steal the souls of all men and cause civilization to become mad. Since nobody has ever seen a star, and night has never fallen on this planet in over two millenniums, most of the citizens are skeptical. So, the entire story revolves around the final sunset of the last sun to see if there really is such a thing as total darkness, and if these stars truly exist.
Worth Reading? Yes, probably.

The Ugly Little Boy
In the near future on Earth, a special company develops the power to create bubbles in time in which they may extract certain objects, items, or people out of different eras and bring them back to the current time in an enclosed environment. However, if the object attempts to leave its special bubble it is enclosed in, this may cause a massive power fluctuation which could knock out the power for miles around.
After the company successfully retrieves inanimate objects from past eras, they proceed to extract a three year old Neanderthal boy from the past and keep him in the present. It works, and they assign a young nurse to take care of him. She teaches him how to behave and slowly shapes him into a boy of society.
Trouble comes however when the company needs new space for new acquisitions (such as a knight from the crusades!), so they announce to the nurse that the boy must be sent back. She protests and things get woeful.
Worth Reading? The ending is predictable.

I Am Legend (Book)

I Am Legend is a compelling novel to me for two reasons: it is the story of one man's struggle to live in isolation with no hope, and it is the exploration of a dangerous and interesting world where vampires rule the night and whatever is left of humanity rules the day.

The world created in I Am Legend is thoroughly explored throughout the book. The main character must hide in his house (in a suburb of Los Angeles) by night, and by day he must go out and kill the vampires to dwindle their numbers--for they have no power during the day and try to hide--while also building up his own supplies and fortifying his position. The book chronicles these events and the effects they have on the main character, turning his life into a monotonous chore with seemingly no end and no hope in sight.
An interesting thing to note about the story is that it is by no true means a supernatural one. The main character is just as incredulous about his situation as the reader, and his search to find logical and scientific rules for why the 'vampires' act as they do is very interesting to see unfold. By the time it's over, an extremely convincing scientific case of why vampires behave as they do is presented.

As stated earlier, the second main conflict in this book is that of the main character's conflict with himself. He is essentially the last man alive on Earth for one reason or another and spends the remainder of his days in depression, uncertainty, and alcoholism. When hope finally comes to him in one form or another, it is moving for the both the character and the reader.

To get into the plot any more would be to spoil it, something which I have already done to a lesser extent, so I won't say any more. Also, this is a short book weighing in at about 170 pages, so that is a huge plus in my book.

I Am Legend
8.9/10

Fight Club (BOOK)

So it turns out the Fight Club movie was based after a book of the same name, and books are generally supposed to be much superior to their movies counterparts, right?

Well, that's debatable, for Fight Club at least.

The book is surprisingly similar to the movie in almost every way, from the plot progression, to lines of dialogs, and to the way characters act.
The movie is surprisingly a very faithful adaptation of the book, but there are three major differences though that I thought were interesting:
1. Expositional Fleshing Out
Okay, so in most media including books and movies, the director/author reveals details about the character through that character's speech, actions, etc. Fight Club (the movie) did this with simple dialogue and mannerisms, and the book does the same. However, the book goes into more detail often describing a character's life with a whole page, while the movie just used a couple of lines of dialog, basically to the same effect. I thought about this, and it seems that the movie didn't really lose any of the expositional benefit of fleshing out the characters more. For this, I thought the movie was superior because it accomplishes the same effect in much less time.
2. Chronogically Confused
A very interesting matter is how the book is very, very, chronologically different from the movie. Many events happen in different order, and it's hard to realize the effect this has on the story. Also, the book would start off many chapters at the pivotal moment of a future scene, only to go back in time and explain how the characters got up to this scene, by using the rest of the chapter to do so. This is an interesting literary technique, but I'm not sure of its benefits.
3. Randomness & the Ending
When I watched Fight Club (the movie) I saw a bunch of stringed together scenes that at first glance, seemed totally incomprehensible to each other. The book also goes off into randomness a lot, except at times it seems like the author doesn't know what he's doing or how he wants the story to end. The movie went off into randomness, but it all seemed to come together by the end.
The end of the book is actually surprisingly different than the movie, and in my opinion, just worse.

Anyway.

The movie actually seems to improve upon the book by changing pivotal scenes and plot elements by consolidating them together. This adds more significance to each of the characters and prevents the movie from going off in too many directions.
The movie also seems to better chronicle the evolution of the main character than the book did.

So, I have to say it, the movie is better than the book.

The Story of Titus

To get the full comical effect, it helps if you've read a Scanner Darkly or at least the review down below.

A Scanner Darkly (BOOK)

A Scanner Darkly is a SCI-FI novel written by Philip K. Dick, who has established himself as a renowned sci-fi author along with others such as Isaac Asimov.

The plot goes something like this: Fred is an undercover agent who is trying to find the source of an illegal drug called Substance D. Bob Arctor is a Substance D addict, but he is really Fred undercover. However, it gets confusing as a story since you don't really know when Fred knows he's Bob Arctor, or when Bob Arctor knows he is Fred. It appears that he knows his double role at the beginning of the story, but by the end it is finally made apparent that Fred doesn't know he was Bob Arctor at all. This is due to Substance D splitting the brain into two distinct entities.

The plot progression, if there's any, is almost non-existent. The whole story is basically four druggies talking nonsense and driving around Southern California being spaced out. There are a couple of memorable scenes, but other than that, it's hard to find a real plot.

The ending was good, although I expected it right before it happened.

Overall, it's a decent book, but I found it hard what to figure out what point of view the author was trying to give the reader. It's hard to understand the situation when you don't know the characters' identities.

Worth Reading? You can skip it.

New Story

I wrote a short science fiction story. It's only dialogue.

It's called Chat Room.

Read it please. And comment.
G
Go

Logan's Run (1976)

The more I watch SCI-FI, the more I see the same plot-lines and elements repeating themselves. No, I'm not bashing any specific movie here or accusing them of copyright-infringement--I just thought it's interesting to see how these same plot elements continually resurface in the SCI-FI genre, either by accident, or because it's just an integral part of the genre.


Other Works that have something in common with Logan's Run
Minority Report - Both have the main character do a job, then become the victim of his old job, and then try to run away from it.
Blade Runner - Both main characters are contracted to kill special beings.
The Giver - Both main characters live in a perfect world that has a dirty secret.
Portal - You're in a dome, and you must escape by going through the unseen sections of machinery and junk.
1984 - Living in a world with no escape, you hear of a rebel organization on the outside and must escape.
Planet of the Apes - Dystopian future that uses famous landmarks to showcase time's effect on the world.
Aeon Flux - The whole world is trapped in a dome and people become "renewed."
Minority Report and 1984 again - Right before the end the main character seems to be on the losing end, and miraculously gets out of the jam (or in 1984's case... *SPOILERS! NOO!*)
Brave New World - Babies in bottles, absence of marriage, something else I can't remember.


There's probably more, but that's ALOT of stuff in common with only one movie, Logan's Run. As for the movie itself, it was okay, I liked it, but everything it did has been done better in other movies, books, and video games... namely the ones above. And I was thinking, if this movie was remade, it would probably be better, and then I was like, "Woah!"

The Golden Compass (BOOK)

This book was okay. The story was interesting, but not particularly captivating, and yet somewhat predictable. The most interesting character is the bear and when he was introduced that was the most interesting part of the story.

It seemed to me they didn't fully utilize the elements of the story and set them into action until the middle of the book, those elements being the golden compass, the Daemons, and whatever else was in this world. And you know the story would somehow get this girl to the North when they introduced it in chapter 2. I was just waiting for random events to throw her there, and I was like, oh it finally happens in chapter 10.

It wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't very good either. I think I might've liked it when I was 12, or maybe 13.

The Golden Compass

7.2/10.0

Elements of a Story

The following is a list of elements that I have found to be intriguing in different media, from books, to movies, to television shows. I think they are all useful to take into account when creating your own story.


1. Sympathizable Characters
One of the reasons you want the good guys to win is become you sympathize with them. You want the reader to understand, like, and root for the main character, otherwise the reader will not care for this character on his journey or what's happening to him.
In Ender's Game: You sympathize with Ender as he's despised as a "Third" child, beat up at school, taken away from his family, put in a strange and hostile environment, and has no friends to help him. When he finally turns the tide, you're rooting for him the whole time.


2. Mystery Element
I find this as an effective means of getting the reader to continue into the story. You want to draw the reader in by leaving certain questions unanswered that will make them speculate about what's really going on.
In LOST: The best example to illustrate a "mystery element" would be in LOST. You are presented with so many questions, and that gives the viewer greater incentive to keep watching. What does the hatch do? Who are the others? What was the Dharma Initiative? What do the others want?


3. New Concepts
One of the interesting aspects about fantasy or Sci-Fi stories is the ability to create new worlds with different rules than our own. New concepts are always interesting to the reader and gets them thinking about the prospects and origins of those concepts.
In MINORITY REPORT: The viewer is introduced to the concept of preventing murder before it happens by seeing the future. The viewer is thus interested to keep watching to fully understand this concept.
In MEMENTO: The concept of a man with no short-term memory pays off well in the movie and keeps the viewer interested.

4. Character Conflicts and Development
It suddenly dawned on me that characters do not have to be inveterately good or evil. Characters can have a wide range of motives, emotions, and desires, and these things can propel the story.
In Ender's Game: In the battle school, there are many characters each with their own motive and side, fighting each other for different reasons. Over time, some characters who were considered enemies become friends, and some friends may become enemies.
In Lord of the Flies: The story in Lord of the Flies would not exist without the conflicts between the characters. All the characters start out as somewhat good. As tension grows and arguments develop, these characters fight each other in various ways until the story progress and the final battle is waged.

5. Inherent Danger
The concept of suspense keeps the viewer interested for the protagonist's safety. Many movies and books use the concept of "Inherent Danger" to always have the protagonist watching his back. This means that throughout some part of the story, someone or something is coming after the protagonist trying to stop him.
In THE MATRIX: With the concept of the Agents, Neo must always watch his back every time he enters the Matrix. Suspense is achieved here.
In 1984: By introducing the reader to the concept of the Thought Police and what happens to Criminals, the viewer is constantly in worry for Winston Smith as he embarks down his road of rebellion.

6. Things Go Wrong
If everything in a story went exactly as planned, that would probably be a boring story. Unexpected things have to change the course of events to spark interest and set a new course for the story.
In THE MATRIX: If Neo's visit to the Oracle was uneventful, and then Morpheus said we must attack the Agents just to strike a moral blow, and then they did that, and then the movie ended; that would be a boring movie.
Instead, Morpheus gets kidnapped on the visit and the characters have to adapt to the situation. The viewer is interested.
In STAR WARS: If Alderaan was never destroyed and Luke went there to give the plans for the Death Star, and then they blew it up, that would be a boring movie. Instead, you know what happened.

7. Double-Goal
Sort of a tie-in with "Things Go Wrong," is the double-goal. Nearly all the major movies released today have a Double-Goal story. The original goal set upon at the beginning of the story is never the final goal. The goal always changes sometime during the course of events to a SECOND goal.
In MINORITY REPORT: John Anderton's original goal is to get his Minority Report and prove his innocence. Then, his second goal is to expose the chief and the corruption in Pre-Crime.

8. Twists
Plot twists aren't necessary for a story, they just pay-off the reader and are a great addition to changing the reader's perspective. Twists don't necessarily have to be "Goal-Changing." There can be small twists, medium twists, or HUGE twists.
In KOTOR: By revealing your true identity as REVAN the player is given a new outlook on what has happened and what he must do to continue.

© 2007 TheJBurger

Ender's Game 3: Xenocide

Xenocide: by Orson Scott Card


Flashback for a second:
"Ender's Game: 9.6/10.0"
"Speaker for the Dead: 8.4/10.0"


And now we get to Ender's game 3, which is a direct sequel to Speaker for the Dead. It took me two tries to read Xenocide, and it was a pain to finish. This book is awful compared to Ender's game, and mediocre compared to speaker for the dead. The characters are all annoying, whining, quarrelling types who just discuss science and plot elements. The story is dragged on for way too long, and the author tries to make it interesting by making it overly-complicated with half a dozen different elements. He just succeeds in making it longer and more boring.


Xenocide is about twice as long as it should be, trying to make something out of nothing. The story is barely interesting to begin with, yet they drag it on for 600 pages. They could have accomplished all they needed to do in the story in only 300 pages or less, yet for some reason the book is 600 pages long.
The book goes starts as a science-fiction, philosphical, moral, and political story, yet ends in the weirdest fashion were dreams and fantasies can come true.

Ender's Game was an amazing book in all aspects. Speaker for the Dead added onto that legacy, but took the story in a risky turn at the end. Xenocide has barely anything happen, and then ends in a weird manner leaving you remembering how good Ender's Game is, and how weird Xenocide is.

Xenocide:

6.7/10.0

Books & Authors

The last three books I tried to read I couldn't read. NO, they weren't too hard. YES, they were kind of boring. But the real reason goes something like this:

So I pick up Grapes of Wrath, and as usual, I open it up and read the panels. Then I read the front and back cover. I see these quotes by people I've never heard of saying how great the book is, and then I see a picture of the author (John Steinbeck) in his "I am one of the world's greatest writers and I wrote a great big book which everyone will remember me for" pose. The pose basically has him staring into the camera in a slightly menacing look with a cigarette in his hand or something.

Anyway...

I couldn't finish it because of this scene about a turtle that was too symbolic and open to allegoristic interpretation.

So, x# of months later, I pick up the Invisible Man. Once again, I go through my "analyze a book without reading it by reading everything on the book-but the book" procedure. And once again, I find a picture of the author. He's also in his super egotistical pose with another cigarette.

I actually start to read the book and I couldn't read it anymore because it was too dramatic and the scenes were just so ridiculously illustrating the point that the author was trying to make. It's like the character's life is just one bad nightmare day after day, just to make this STATEMENT that the author is trying to say.

So that's 2 books I couldn't read.

Then I pick up the Painted Bird by this other dude who I've never heard of. I grudgingly look on the back cover only to find another black & white picture of another author in another menacing pose.
It's scary to find authors like that.

So then I read the book and I just can't read it because I know it's going to be super grotesque, dramatic, painful, and all that stuff that makes a book "amazing."

Bad excuses.

Story

I made another story.

There is another number in the title.

It's called room 96.

Please read and comment.

Brave New World

Brave New World by Alduous Huxley

Brave New World is a book set about 500 years into the future, where all babies are born in bottles in giant factories, given ranks from Alpha to Gamma, and given messages in their sleep of what is right, what is wrong, and how to behave. These messages are given to all children from the moment they are born to their teens. Depending on their class, the messages "condition" children as to what they like, what they don't like, and prepare them for their future jobs and roles in society as "Alphas," "Betas," "Epsilons," etc.
Essentially, all members of society are "conditioned" to the ultimate degree so that they speak only what they remember in their dreams, and act accordingly to a machine-like society.
Interesting World + 5

The characters were somewhat boring, bland, and especially because they are all so "conditioned" to the system that they only speak words and phrases that they remember from those hypnaeopedic messages in their sleep.
The only interesting character in the book is Helmholtz, who wants to fight the system, but doesn't realize it, or doesn't know how because of his inner "conditioning."
Bland characters -2

The story is fairly boring in itself. It was inevitable that they have to introduce a character that is out of place in the system or something, but it just felt so out of context and weird that it had to be an Indian, and an ascetic one at that.
Unsuspenseful Story -1

There were alot of plot-holes, unless someone more capable can explain them to me. Some characters in the book discuss their "conditioning" in various places, so that leads me to believe that they are aware of how they were raised, especially since other characters take tours of the "Baby Factories." So, why don't any of the characters rebel or fight the system? If they know that all their preconceived notions about life were unconciously given to them in hypnopaedic messages, then why don't they fight it? They just acknowledge it like they're happy not learning anything themselves.
Other plot holes: Why does an Indian reservation exist... really? Their excuse for it existing was because (1) The land cannot be used for civilized purposes due to certain things, and (2) they use it to study "uncivilized" people or something.
I can't really take that and it seems they just wanted that in the book for plot reason #4, and they couldn't think up a really good excuse.
Plot-Holes -3

Finally,
Compare the book to 1984. Early in 1984, they introduced the idea of the "police" capturing and imprisoning bad citizens at night in a dream like procedure. This has you constantly in fear that Winston will be caught at any moment he treads rebellious ground.
In Brave New World, there's nothing like that, and there's no really conflict or suspense anywhere, except at the very end. So, it's pretty boring.

1984 (Suspense + Story + Characters + Psychological + World)
Farenheit 451 (Suspense + Story + Characters + 1/2 World)
Brave New World (World + Psychological)

So... 1984 > Farenheit 451 > Brave New World.

The world is interesting, yet not enough to keep the book up and running for the whole part.

Ender's Shadow

Brief Explanation of the Ender's game series:

1) ENDER'S GAME: Pretty much stand alone book. Released first.

-------Sequels------------
2) Speaker for the Dead: Called a sequel. True. 2000 years after Ender's game.
3) Xenocide: This is really, an exact sequel to Speaker.
4) Children of the Mind: Don't know too much about it, but it's another exact sequel making it a trilogy for 2-3-4.

------Parallel Novels-------
5) Ender's Shadow: Reads parallel to Ender's Game, on the exact same timeline. But released after all the others.

So I finished Ender's Shadow after having to hold it at the library 2 consecutive times. :D ... right.
Cut to the chase:
The things I liked about Ender's Shadow:
The streets of Rotterdam, and the command school on Eros. The middle sections were basically boring because they kinda just repeat stuff that already happened in Game.
The conversations between Bean/Graff/Teachers were some of the best stuff. The way they discuss everything, details, military secrets, and Bean makes them all paranoid... it's just awesome.
And the ending where Bean and Graff finally can be friends because the war is over... that was just nice.
I did not like:
You basically revisit the same locations as Game and you know eventually what's going to happen, so... it's not as good. And the way Bean practically reveals all the "twists" from Ender's game...
And the total concept isn't just as fleshed out as Ender's Game. Ender's Game is more like an ultimate-cinematic movie that covers every angle of this futuristic war. Shadow is more just the story of Bean and how he sees and responds to the world he's in. It's not as spectacular but still a good story.
Also how Bean seems to be in control of everything. Like it seems he's really the BEST and he helped Ender think Ender was the BEST so it gets all weird.
I somewhat liked Bean as a character in Ender's Game. But for large portions of Shadow, he came off to me as arrogant and "too smart for his own good." But eventually by the end of the story, I wound up liking him again.
Random Stuff:
Apparently, the majority of adults in the future will all be out-spoken, speak in a sarcistic manner, and use many allegories to make their points. Just Card's writing style as always.
-------------------------------------

Shadow is still not as good as Ender's Game, but you can't expect it to be, because it covers the same base material. But it is still a good book, and expands on certain things from Game.
Ender's Shadow: 8.0/10.

Why I dont want to read Ender's Game 3

Nobody probably cares, but I wanna tell anonymous people anyway.

Predictability.
First of all, I didn't really like the story for Speaker for the Dead. It was good, interesting (somewhat) but TOTALLY PREDICTABLE. What I thought was gonna happen half way through the book--happened. The end was pretty much what I thought it was gonna be... except they did some weird stuff before the end.

So I started Xenocide (Ender's Game 3) and I read the first chapter or so. It picks up right after where Speaker for the Dead left off. So I'm thinking... this is how the story is gonna go: Valentine will meet Miro, they'll go on some side-tracking quest then go meet on Lusitania. Then Ender will be doing random stuff with the Pequinos and other junk. Then eventually the hundred world congress will erupt into chaos or civil war over the discovery of the buggers being reborn or something. But, BUT, they won't nuke the planet. They'll make some wierd treaties and people will be prejudiced against buggers for eternity, but they'll try to live in peace. Then they'll tie up some loose ends and stuff.
That's how I THINK the story will go after reading the first chapters.

It will probably be different and have some surprises/interesting scenes, but I'm too tired to concentrate my attention on the same, boring, predictable like dialogue and writing.

Retelling the story
E.G.: Miro has slurred speech, and he's somewhat paralyzed, so they have to spend three pages explaining what happened to him in the previous book.

They did this in speaker for the dead, and it annoyed me. They did it even more in the first few chapters of XENOCIDE and it irritated me. Point is: I already know what happened to these characters in the past. Don't tell me again, over and over. Yeah, there might be someone who's reading this book without having read the previous two, but come on... who really wants to start a series on book 5/6, then go back to 3/6, then 6/6, then 1/6, then finish 2 and 4 simoultaneously? And besides, I think it'll make the NEW reader WANT to go back and read the previous books even more, because they don't know WHY characters are certain ways.

Same Writing Style
Orson Scott Card. He is the author.

His writing style is predictable after 2 books, and some dialogue scenes are so familiar, I'm thinking im getting De-Ja-Vu. It seems like he's trying to make the dialogue witty, and interesting by making characters speak their minds FLAT OUT, but it gets old...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


I liked Ender's Game alot. I liked the first 1/3 of Speaker. Since then it's been kind of a weird decline for me. So, I don't feel like reading the next book...

...

...but I'm probably gonna read it anyway...! :P

Why? ...Well.

Ender's Game 2

...or, the haunting title that sounds like a horror novel: Speaker for the Dead.

Good:
------------------------------------------
A new plot. I was afraid of a boring, generic plot about unrelated matters from the first book. Luckily I was saved. A new alien race is discovered? That's interesting! ...Right?

Returning Elements. The concept of having star-travel only taking two weeks, while for everyone else twenty years passes is cool.
------------------------------------------

Bad:
------------------------------------------
There were times that it felt like Ender was a "super" human, psychiatrist guy. I thought it was just weird and it went overboard.

There was a little too much soap opera drama for me... that whole "thing..." you know what I'm talking about...

Gaping plot holes. There was basically no reason for Novinha to seal up that secret. It was kinda stupid. All you have to do is let somebody discover it, but you don't go crazy and tell the piggies about it!

The idea that Jane constantly changes forms (like turning into a genie, than an old man, then a young lady) reminded me of a terribly corny scene from a movie that I can no longer remember. It was just a little corny describing it in the book, but if they would show it in a movie... man that would be awkward.
-------------------------------------------

Ender's Game is better than Speaker for the Dead. (In my opinion)

As far as I'm concerned, Ender's Game had a better plot, better characters, a slightly more interesting concept, better conflicts, a much better story, and it was less preachy toward the destruction of the buggers.

One thing that confused me about the end of Ender's Game, was how could Ender be certain that the buggers were peace loving after the first two attacks? I thought he was imagining the conversation with the Hive Queen in his head, like, this is what you would've said if you were alive. But it turns out, he has telepathic powers! He actually does talk to the hive queen and the hive queen does read his mind!

Amazing.

But anyway,
I prefered the concept of a future where Aliens were attacking us and we needed super geniuses to save us (Ender's Game), rather than a Psychiatrist diagnosing a family while trying to solve a mystery (On another planet! Wooh!) (Speaker for the Dead).

And I kind of hated the ending. I wanted Ender to travel tons of more planets with Jane, not become some old guy on a backwater planet and then die. Or maybe his nephews/neices will continue his legacy.

If Ender's Game is a 9.6, then Speaker for the Dead is a 8.4.

Ender's Game

This book was good. It was better than 1984 and Fahrenheit 451.

I must say,

Ender's Game >= Lord of the Flies > 1984 > Fahrenheit 451

I really liked it. That's all. I don't know if Ender's Game is better than Lord of the Flies, but I liked it better.

1984 could make a movie... Fahrenheit 451 could make a movie... LotF could probably make a movie...

Ender's Game would need a whole mini-series though, it's just longer and more complex.

As far as games go,

1984 could not be a game. Fahrenheit might have more potential, but I don't think it would be suitable still. Lord of the Flies could probably make a sort of adventure/action/survival game.

ENDER'S GAME SPOILERS AHEAD:
Ender's Game could be a... "game" (what a coincidence...). I would see it as sort of a life sim/RPG/Adventure. You would start the game on the Battle School and you have stats and relations (e.g. Posedion 12...). You could make friends or enemies with each character and you have to work out and stuff and you have studies and skills. Then you would have the battles and practices which would be sub-games of their own with complex strategies and stuff.

Then after you get far enough in the game you go to the command school where you repeat for a shorter time. Then you win the game after the final battle and then it will be a sort of cutscene that finishes the game.
END OF SPOILERS.

So...
Ender's Game was good. Very good. At least I liked it.

2 Thumbs up. 5/5 stars. 9.6/10 score.

Farenheit 451 vs 1984

Farenheit 451: By Ray Bradbury
1984: By George Orwell

The following contains spoilers from both books so consider yourself warned.

Setting:
1984 would have to win on this one. 1984's world was described in great detail in every little aspect. From the apartments with the telescreens to the prole's ghetto streets, to the little offices in the ministry of truth? to the mysterious contents of room 101.

Characters:
This one is a close call. Beatty in 451 is the equivalent of O'Brien in 1984. 1984 has more characters, such as the shop owner, all his friends at work, and his fellow neighbors. 451 has less characters but many of them are just as good. But because of 1984's great attention to detail and more fleshed out characters, 1984 is the winner here. Again.

Story:
1984: A regular citizen embarks on a search to break the rules of society and to find a way to combat this world that he lives in. In the end, there is no hope, for this utopian society cannot be stopped.
451: A fireman realizes that the books he burns hold the key to the past and the "real" world. He tries to save books and stop the firemen and gets hunted down by his government. In the end he barely manages to escape.
Winner: Another close call. Farenheit's story had better pacing, and kicked off pretty early in the book when Montag questions the firemen's motives. 1984's story however takes a looong time to start, while the author explains the world for a long, long time. Both stories are very good but I'm going to have to go with Farenheit 451 on this for the better pacing and some very good scenes. This one could've went either way.

Writing:
1984 is written well. Farenheit is written in more of a loose manner where the author express thoughts, feelings, and actions in fragments of sentences. I thought he went a little overboard sometimes writing like this.
Both are well written but I think that 1984 deserves the prize here. 1984 was described in every aspect and you could picture every scene perfectly.

Overall winner:
1984 > Farenheit 451
The world-the story-the characters-everything just fits perfectly together in 1984.

Farenheit is still good though. It has more action-like-suspense scenes which makes it perhaps more "exciting" to read. It's also much shorter than 1984.

The end.