Shadow of What Now?

Finished off the last of Orson Scott Card's Shadow series, Shadow of the Giant, after slamming through the three books that came before it in roughly 4 days altogether. It's a good series. The books get a little too politically-mired down and there's a bit too much introspection when there should be more dialogue, but on the whole, they're most excellent.

That being said, I will never read another book, ever. Ever, I say!

Because, man, that was a depressing ending. If ever a book needed to go a little slower at the end and savor the big moments, this was one, and instead I ended up all sad and wondering. A) it was a tremendously sad ending to a generally already upsetting book, and B) it left way too many threads dangling, so the series can continue on. Which I'm not against, I love all of OSC writing, and the confirmed fact that there will be many more books in the same universe (more on that later) makes me happy, in a disgruntled sort of way because I don't have them now.

I think maybe I'm just spoiled by the larger books that I've been reading lately. There were just so many characters to care about, that when you get down to it, 260 pages is not enough to cover anyone in depth. You get some good characterization on, say, Petra for instance, and it's very well done. But then at the same time, I can physically feel parts of Peter's character not getting expressed due to lack of room. And don't get me started on how Bean was basically not in this book at all.

I'm all for economy of writing, but wait, no I'm not. Pay him by the word! I want intense, Cryptonomicon-length, detailed examinations of each character. When he wraps things up at the end, I feel very sad, but had he put in some serious effort to developing the relationships that appeared in the last 50 pages, he could have had me crying, curled up in a little ball on the living room floor. Not that I necessarily want that, but in this case I sort of did. It's a great series, pull out all the stops, by God.

But there will be more books and further exploits so I'll take what he gives and like it. AND I was reading around the 'net and saw that OSC is planning a post-Children of the Mind book/possibly-series, which fills me with such unadulterated glee that words aren't very helpful. That series is hands-down my favorite Sci-fi story ever. Might even be my favorite story in any category of anything.

So as we get to the end I suppose I probably will read a book again. I couldn't even keep up that statement for an entire post. It's best not to delude ourselves in such a manner. Plus, what would I do with all the books I already have? If there's anything I am not, it is wasteful of literature.

Wow, could this be less-interesting to everyone else in the universe besides myself? Probably not unless I started talking about World of Warcraft and how much I love my Shaman. So I'll totally just stop here.

Give a hoot, read a book.