Children of the Mind
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Children of the Mind
Buy Now for $26.99
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Narrated by:
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Gabrielle de Cuir
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John Rubinstein
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By:
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Orson Scott Card
About this listen
The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: the Pequeninos, a large colony of humans, and the Hive Queen, who was brought there by Ender Wiggin. But now, once again, the human race has grown fearful; the Starways Congress has gathered a fleet to destroy Lusitania. Ender's oldest friend, Jane, an evolved computer intelligence, can save the three sentient species of Lusitania. She has learned how to move ships outside the universe, and then instantly back to a different world, abolishing the light-speed limit. But it takes all the processing power available to her, and the Starways Congress is shutting down the network of computers in which she lives, world by world.
Soon Jane will not be able to move the ships. Ender's children must save her if they are to save themselves.
Children of the Mind is the fourth book in Orson Scott Card's The Ender Saga.
Browse more titles in the Ender Wiggin series.©1996 Orson Scott Card (P)2004 Audio RenaissanceCritic Reviews
"This is a worthy ending to what might be styled a saga of the ethical evolution of humanity, a concept seldom attempted before and never realized with the success Card achieves here." (Booklist)
"Card's prose is powerful." (Publishers Weekly)
Any additional comments?
Initially, I started Children of the Mind directly after finishing Xenocide. Whilst the narrative flow makes sense, the heavy narrative style became tiring. I stopped listening halfway through CotM; as there is much in-depth philosophical musing about the nature of philotes and aiúa's; 'who is who'; how the characters should classify their relationships; soul vs. memory, and genetic codes.Don't get me wrong- I enjoyed this aspect of the CotM, I love knowing as much as I can about the lore of a universe, but it was a lot of speculation and information, and even though it's told from the view of the characters, they almost faded into the background; facilitating the musings rather than driving the plot.
However, a few months later I have finished CotM and I am enchanted by the Enderverse all over again. The performance by Gabrielle de Cuir and John Rubinstein was stellar (though there was an odd, phonetic pronunciation of the Samoan word: Papāalagi), it was grand to have the same voices throughout the Ender Series. The characters re-engaged and although I missed the usual, central involvement of Andrew, his withdrawal allowed some of the other characters to develop in interesting ways. Andrew was still a central aspect of all of their lives; his actions, morality and legacy were evident to the end.
The final thing that I want to say about Children of the Mind is that even though I needed to split it in two; when I finished the second half I felt somehow more whole.
Taken in Halves
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the end of the enderverse :(
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It just keeps getting better
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A good wrap up of Ender's Story
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Would you consider the audio edition of Children of the Mind to be better than the print version?
n/aHow would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
n/aWhat does Gabrielle de Cuir and John Rubinstein bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
n/aDid you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
n/aAny additional comments?
Well, the story has even more schizophrenic lines/thoughts than Xenocide. Sometimes I wanted to fast forward those conversations between Miro and Val because they really did not make sense to me. But who am I to judge, in the end this is me not getting the author's ideas. Still, the story makes sense overall and is thrilling, making you want to keep following it. There's another thing troubling me -- the narration. Since the narrating team had a few men and women wouldn't it make more sense to read in a woman's voice for a woman character and in a man's voice for a man character? I didn't get it at all why while having as team they were splitting the story in a weird way.Mixed feeling about the story but still recommend
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There are some cool ideas in this book but they are on the periphery and the bulk of the book focuses on the dull relationship of an unlikeable dude and a perfect (simple and pretty) woman.
Give it a miss.
Disappointing
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Any additional comments?
I really, really loved Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead - Speaker for the Dead was so good it got me back into "reading" fiction. I was hoping that after Xenocide (and the complaints about it being full of long, unnecessary discussions on philosophy, and feeling like you're being fed Orson Scott Card's world views) there might be some changes to how the book was presented. Unfortunately, it still seems to have these unnecessary discussions (which, again, feel like you're being fed the author's personal opinions all the time), the 'kinda' racist fake Asian accents, and the stereotyping of different races and religions is also increased (big, fat and loud Samoans, honorable Japanese etc).I didn't enjoy the last two books, even though I was really hoping to. Characters were made even more annoying, and the plot-line was also hard to follow and seemed a bit... mystical. I don't regret listening to them, but I'm disappointed in them.
Disappointed.
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