I saw this movie a few weeks ago with my dear friend Shasta.  Ever since IO9 reported that this movie was "a love story to science," I knew I would love this movie... and I... loved this movie.

I think what I liked best about that is the entire thing doesn't feel like a science fiction movie.  Instead, it feels like a really great bio-pic, like Apollo XIII or Lawrence of Arabia.  Also, the inclusion of "Waterloo" was a personal present made just for me.*  

Thank you, The Martian.

*Don't ask.

I have read Ender's Game many times since it was first published, but I was worried about reading it this time.  I've seen the author twice at readings, and have always been thrilled by his brilliance and charisma, but his pugnacious attitude toward what is right and wrong has worn thin on me, as it has on so many. And there was the movie two years ago -- with its albeit flubbed ending -- that was in whole so gorgeous that it was a religious experience to watch. And just last month, one of the young tourists I met in Ireland said she had seen the movie, and tried the book, but it was just like the movie, so she wasn't going to bother.

I was worried.

The story of Ender's Game, a brilliant six-year old shipped off to space to train as a military commander, is as compelling as it ever has been.  It is an important story, and I think both its years and my own have not tarnished its need to be required reading.

Many people, Card included, have tried to analyze what makes this story great, but I think they all are, myself included, are wrong.  Card feels that the character of Ender speaks to everyone who feels like an indentured pawn in the world, and we are legion.  I remember when I reviewed this last (that review was lost), I felt that that the themes of "Excellence is the only authority" is such a cruel and inhuman standard that you cannot help but feel compassion for those crushed under its mandate.  So this time?  For writers especially?

For writers.  A Real Story transcends everything you know about writing and what you want to happen.  At a certain point, you just have to listen to what the Story is telling you, and write it down.  I thought I could see this happen in this book -- after a few chapters, I felt the author get out of the way of the Story.


Chip Delaney put it in strident terms: "You cannot master your Craft: you can only Submit to your Craft."  Naomi Shihab Nye put it a kinder way: "Believe in the work that is coming through you."   


Listen to the Story.  If nothing comes, just be patient.  It may insert itself while you are writing down words.