Empire

Empire by Orson Scott Card

Category: SciFi Grade: C+

Card is actually a pretty good writer. His two series - the Ender SciFi series and the Alvin Marker fantasy series are both classics. I'm still waiting for him to hit a home run (or even a solid double) outside of these two series. This book definitely isn't the one.

The premise here is that, in the very near future, the Red State/Blue State divisions in the United States actually lead to civil war. The underlying warning -- that today's polarization leads to an openness to manipulation by a smart, silent group of hidden powerful people - is as old as literature. It wasn't until I got to the end that I realized that what Card had been chartered to do in this book is write a novelization of an upcoming video game and, boy, does it feel like that. You get the impression, at times, that the action has been plotted by a committee of 14 year old boys. There's all kinds of video-game-oriented weapons and lots of shoot-em-up action. The plot is also very disjointed -- you sometimes feel like you're watching a Die Hard movie that's had 5 minute chunks snipped out every once in a while.

I do, though, have to throw out one interesting thing about Card. He was really one of the first to believe in the value of an online presence for a popular author. His current online community, www.hatrack.com, started out as a dedicated forum on AOL close to twenty years ago. I still remember the day that he came to headquarters to discuss how the forum would be set up. Since most of us, back then, were certifiable nerds, that was a very well attended meeting. He was a strange guy -- overweight, Mormon, very conservative for the times -- but he absolutely understood the power of an online fan club. Today, he actually releases most of his books a chapter at a time as he writes them on his web site and actually listens to and incorporates feedback from his fans.

Check out the website or his early book, Ender's Game, but skip this one.