Empire - Orson Scott Card

Another Orson Scott Card book that had been waiting for my attention for quite some time now, I finally picked Empire up.  I must say it’s entirely different from the other books I’ve read by the same author – rather surprisingly so.  It’s about a group of American soldiers trying to prevent an American civil war, all the while not really knowing whether they are being manipulated by a very clever, ambitious dictator-wannabe in such a way that in the end everything will fall perfectly into place so that he may take complete control of America. 

 This book followed in the wake of September 11, and I have to say it carried a sense of paranoia all throughout the story.  Mr. Card did however, give a rather lengthy explanation for his reasons to write such a story at the end of the novel.  I will not dwell on that – the politics behind terrorism and civil wars and dictatorships, and so on – I would much rather take the story as I see it.  It’s a very interesting and engaging story after all. 

So Reuben Malich is a brilliant soldier.  From the outset he’s given this all-around-good-guy heroic image.  He seems to have everything and he’s on the way to the top.  And of course someone like him has to be set up for a downfall by the bad guys – in this case Averell Torrent, our ambitious little baddie who thinks himself a Roman Emperor in the making.  Reuben along with Cole, his trusty sidekick, almost but not quite succeed in foiling an attempt to assassinate the President of the USA.  From there begins the many trials and tribulations that Reuben and Cole must go through to get to the truth of what’s really happening in the White House.  Conspiracies galore; left wing vs. right wing factions; a hostile takeover of New York City by weird walking tanks, and so on and so forth, in the center of which is Reuben.  And then Reuben is murdered.  Just like that.  I almost cried!  I couldn’t believe it.  Right smack in the middle of the story the hero dies.  I must admit that throughout the rest of the novel I was hoping that Reuben would pop back out somewhere, that he really planned to fake his own murder, etc.  But he didn’t.  He died.  So it’s up to Cole, Reuben’s wife, and Reuben’s loyal group of soldier-brothers to save the day.  In the end, Averell Torrent is the uncontested President of the USA.  What the hell?!  But the book was quite a statement – it clearly reveals Orson Scott Card’s opinion of governments, wars, religion, heroism, family, and friendship.  I rather think he’s an idealist who’s a bit frustrated by the way things aren’t going in the ideal fashion.

Anyway, it’s good.  I couldn’t let go of the book.  The characters were interesting and the conspiracies were intricate.  The pace was really tight and exciting and you just want to know what they’re going to do next, whether the conspiracy will be revealed or not, who’s really the bad guy, or is the bad guy not so bad after all?   It got to the point where it’s frustrating and I just wanted to skip the remaining pages between where I was and the last page of the story to peek at the ending (I try to never do this with any book – peek at the ending, I mean.).  This is quite a novel experience for me because even though you wouldn’t really call this a politics-themed story, it did have a healthy dose of government jargon and politics involved, which I usually dislike reading about (I read Primary Colors  a couple of years ago and I really didn’t like it one bit, sorry.).  I just hate politics, local or foreign.  Politicians to me are all the same rotten banana, all out to line their own pockets with the honest money the common people shed their blood and sweat for, all the while spouting public service and for the good of the people  yadda, yadda.  But anyway, I actually liked this book.  It was exciting and thrilling and interesting all the way.  So even though the theme didn’t appeal much to me, I’m still glad I gave it a try.  It might be a while, though, before I willingly pick up another similarly themed story.  Better be careful.  

Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut

I experienced this book through audio.  Ethan Hawke performed it.  In his droll, ironic tones, the story was lent a certain gravity that I might not have perceived on my own if I’d read the book myself.  It is the story of Billy Pilgrim and his experiences as a soldier in the Second World War, mostly centering on the bombing and destruction of Dresden.  But of course that’s not all.  Billy Pilgrim also happens to be a time traveler as well as a victim of kidnapping by aliens from a planet called Tralfamador.  I don’t really know how I should feel about all that, but I am glad that this is not just another morality story about the tragedy and uselessness of war much like so many other typical war stories out there.

Too young, scrawny, and sickly, Billy Pilgrim was glaringly unfit to be a soldier (who IS fit to be one, anyway?).  Trudging through the forests of Germany with a few other soldiers equally as hungry and poorly equipped for war as he, he makes the discovery of his ability for time travel.  He goes through the many stages of his own life, past and future.  His parents, his marriage, his children, his abduction by aliens, his plane crash experience, even his own death – he goes through them all.  He keeps coming back to his soldier days, though, and ironically enough, it is his other life/lives that put the horrors he went through in war into perspective instead of the other way around.  These people that he had met throughout his life – fellow soldiers, war survivors and veterans, optometrists, his family, aliens – they all seemed to pass by him like disjointed episodes as he jumped from one time to another.  Yet they all mattered and did not matter all at once; for as was repeated, everything is as it should have been and always will be. So it goes.

They kept repeating that:  So it goes.  Nothing could have changed anything, not even being abducted by aliens, not even traveling through time.  Does any of it make sense, does anything we do affect history, or destiny?  Maybe not.  Maybe there’s no need to.  We all will face fate one day.  Wars will always be what they are.  Life will always be what it is.  The Tralfamadorians’ advice goes:  dwell on the happy times. 

I liked this book very much.  I liked how anti-melodramatic it is – not one word here romanticized war.  Its alternate title is “The Children’s Crusade”, reiterating that ‘war is fought by babies.’  I liked the way Ethan Hawke read it – languidly and almost lazily with an ironic lilt that could sometimes be alternately witty and sarcastic.  This story gets into you.  The voice of Billy Pilgrim – his honesty, his good nature, his acceptance, his grief – gets to you.  I’m so glad I got to experience it.  Few other of its kind could be as timeless and provocative as this is.  I strongly recommend it.