Earth Afire is the second book in a prequel trilogy to Ender’s Game.
The fact that, in the media of film and literature, this has become a
common practice is perhaps not something I will delve into too deeply
here, though I will feature some of the flaws of this structure. Is
this book a worthy successor to Earth Unaware? Is it a worthy predecessor to Ender’s Game?
Right
off the bat I almost put this book down. I need to get this clear, not
for readers, but for authors. And for publishers. And for agents.
Humanity has worked a long, hard time to get to where it’s been. We’ve
gotten through a lot of prejudices and really terrible things as a
result of bigotry. I’m not going to go so far as to break Godwin’s Law,
but what I am going to say is that in this day and age, seeing an image
of Earth’s future in which a man who even claims to run a respectable
image can be shocked that a woman runs an equally respectable business
is enough to convince me that this is not a future I want to read about.
The idea that bigotries that are gasping their dying breaths in the
21st century will be revived 100 years ago makes looking to the future
lose a lot of its appeal.
This
is the low point of the book, and I’m grateful, because usually when
you start counting low points, you end up with a lot of them. There is
the fact that this vision of the future includes a Great Britain that is
still fond of using archaic racial derogatories, but that’s a throwaway
line in monologue that still makes sense if you remove it, and has a
bit of purpose, so I can forgive that to an extent. Similarly, we get a
bit about a woman who had a role in Earth Unaware and is largely irrelevant in Earth Afire,
making a speech at the end about how the part of her that is a mother,
and a sister, a wife is in favor of taking the risk. This would have a
bit of meaning if there was anything other than her theoretical vagina
(theoretical because we don’t actually see it, of course) to state that
she is any of those things. It would be a bit more meaningful if any of
those things actually informed her character.
Beyond those things, I would argue that Earth Afire is better than its predecessor. It doesn’t have the high points that Earth Unaware had, but if its low points were identical, I probably wouldn’t be looking forward to Earth Awakens. And I am, so if you want the very short version, I did enjoy Earth Afire
once I got past the early bits. It’s still plagued by the occasional
irrelevant storyline, but where in the first book it was the unrelated
plot that held my interest the best, here it’s a story that I barely
have interest in. Since this is a plot that ties in to the first book,
it can be maintained that a plot in Book Three requires it. I don’t
hold to that mentality myself, but I can see an editor pushing for its
inclusion here.
More
importantly, we get our main plotlines about Mazer Rackham in China -
one that has stakes, action and more grounded emotional drama all in
sufficient doses - and that of Victor, which pays off for the effort
that was put into setting the plot up. Through Victor and Imala’s
dealings with various individuals in Juke Limited, we see that Victor
really isn’t
emotionally mature enough to have the kind of love that his family was
concerned about his developing, furthering his innocence. It doesn’t
particularly further his likability, though. Still, you have to admire
the creativity that is involved in the solutions he develops to
problems.
Creativity
is largely the name to the game. The MOPs, despite all of their focus
on skill, aggressiveness and charisma, value creative solutions to
problems higher than anything else. Creativity and insight seem to be
the name of the game here: Ender was selected because of the possibility
for new tactics created by the minds of children, and here you see the
birth of that concept. Bingwen is clearly, if not a proto-Ender, the
inspiration for Battle School, and I’m curious to see how that’s going
to go. Ultimately, I feel like the trilogy is going to come down to a
statement that creativity and the refusal to lie down and die beats
intelligence, resources and a willingness to die for the greater good,
but it’s too early to tell as the individual books are not ready to
stand definitively and make a statement.
That
is probably the biggest weakness of these books, but unfortunately it’s
not one that surprises me. Novels, movies and comic issues that have a
definitive beginning, middle, end and stance are getting more and more
rare, but with any luck the greater whole of the Formic Wars will be greater for it.
I’ve
done a lot more criticizing this book than praising it, but that’s par
for the course of the way I read: the book has nothing spectacular, but a
lot of average things. Bingwen is good, but it’s good in a way that
we’ve seen Card do before. Mazer is good, but we’re still waiting for
the epic moment of triumph that hangs like a shadow over everything he
does. Wit is cool, but it feels like we’re waiting for his true purpose
that is yet to come. Ditto with many of the other plots. This book,
for instance, ends with one minor victory, two cliffhangers, and the
completion of a bridging story that gives no indication of what is yet
to come. This may be a result of the initial comic format, or it might
have been a conscious decision in outlining the trilogy, but it still
results in a distinct lack of shining moments on a short term basis.
Yet, as I stated, I do recommend Earth Afire, and I do want to read Earth Awakens.
It just feels like a part of a whole, something that doesn’t have all
of the elements of the story yet. There is a character arc, but it has
the odor of something that is not yet completed. Actions are taken with
full awareness of the consequences, but we have yet to see them. Plans
are undertaken with hopes of success and fears of failure, but we have
yet to see the dangers, and the chances for each. Therefore, the book
is not yet able to relay the gravity of these scenes, so it is difficult
as yet to truly praise them.
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