Look to Windward Substantive

Before reading the book I was really interested with the cover, so when Kabe, Tersono, and Quilan were introduced I tried to find them on the cover. Turns out that I could only find the Hub's avatar. While reading, I couldn't shake this feeling that this book was different from the others we've read. Like Lindsay said, Banks did just drop us in the middle of this book--actually he left us hundreds of years after the Iridian War. But it's not a new feeling or entirely exclusive to science fiction. Throughout the book, the story is told through the points of view of non-humans. It's not as though Banks left out humans-- there are 50 million humans on Masaq'. But here we're looking through the eyes of a Chelgrian or Homomdan at the humans and Culture. I thought it was interesting how the contact in this instance is a non-human reaching out to humans, which we almost get at the end of Children of God. That being said, I really liked Banks' novel as an ending to this course. It was a pleasure reading these books (mostly the science fiction) and having class with everyone.

Windward Substinative

Natural vs. Unnatural

Unlike Tim I was not a huge fan of look to windward. I can't place my finger on anything specific--I just felt like the weapons pornesque descriptions of people things places (people that are places and things occasionally) could go on forever--and I tend to forget those parts of books pretty quickly anyway.

Back to my post. I hinted at this idea in my last post (below), but there is a certain unnatural assumption made about humanity--we, for some reason or another, view our selves as supernatural, able to manipulate and destroy that as it should be. This is a trait we seem to uniquely identify with ourselves and tend to remove from the other (even, often, when the other is human). Look to Windward had, to me, the most reasonable others because his others seemed capable of this same act of a supernatural nature. Yes, they are also unique in both their culture and physiological makeup (I will admit a giant living aware plant dirigible is pretty unique other), but unlike so many other examples of alien species we have explored the species of the Culture's universe are uniquely unnatural--they manipulate the world around them, ostracize members of their society, and have a knack for being destructive towards one another.

Again, I will grant that it was still the humans role to interfere in everything (as we love to do when serving as a hegemonic power), and the culture seemed (in a very human way) to suggest that they were solely responsible for the problems caused by this interference (you can read my previous post to see where I lay the blame for civil wars and revolutions supposedly caused by outside forces). This self as the only truly aware peoples is something we do even with other humans though, so I would not read much into it (Columbus describing the aboriginal americans along with the plants and birds--although after reading this novel you never know maybe the plants had names).

No, Bank's others are so oddly believable because they are so...well human...in that we use human to describe that odd woman folly we love to praise. They are human--disconnected with their environment, manipulative of the afterlife, destructive towards each other in a way the aliens of Alien, The Sparrow, Enders Game, and Just about anything else we covered this semester were not.

Look to Windward Substantive

I found similar things interesting as Jen. I'd like to add to the downloading memories a bit, call me obsessive, but Data from TNG downloaded all the diary entries from the colony he was in before it was destroyed. We kind of have a similar thing going on if things like Live Journal and other websites continue. Although it isn't at the point of downloading people's memories, yet. There is technology to move things with implants in your head on a computer screen, so maybe that is the next step. Although hopefully it won't be like the Borg hive mind with all the different voices. Good ol' white noise.

We have the Borg and the Culture, I wonder what's next?

Substinative

I wonder how history might have been different if after a few years with Columbus missing some other explorer sets out to the west and finds him alone as a prostitute? I also wonder if he would have had similar difficulties overcoming the only conclusion that he could possibly have reached which is GOD wanted him to be raped? I propose that, instead, Columbus would easily have seen that it and little to do with God and much more to do with Godless barbarians.
I say this, hoping to turn it around as well, what would Sandoz have done in Columbus' situation. Would he have presumed the perfect equality of everyone he came in contact with, and assumed that he could quickly understand not only their language, but their society and culture as well? Would he have found himself prey to some hungry cannibal tribe?
Both The Sparrow and Todorov seemed to express to opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to dealing with the other. In Children of God, Russel makes a distinct effort to convey and ideal of something in the middle. Not the same, but not unequal. Equal but different. Somehow both Columbus and Sandoz are closedminded explorers. Where both expeditions went wrong where they could have improved their crew lists would have been to be willing to accept something not expected, or to have brought someone along with the capacity to beleive that not all societies not all peoples are exactly the same.
I wonder if, given a sense of post modernism, Columbus would have been able to handle his interactions with aboriginal americans in a positive manner.

Children of God

First off, while I agree with several of the other posts that this seemed to resolve everything a bit too neatly, I enjoyed the fact that Russel allowed the readers to be as misguided as her characters. She intentionally didn't reveal all of the information, and really demonstrated exactly how easy it is to be completely wrong about a person or their motivations when working with incomplete information and poor communication. While it wasn't completely unexpected after PTJ's preview, it still was well done by Russel.

That said, I did feel like she stretched things a bit thin in this book. There were so many characters that I felt like a lot of them were left half-developed, which was disappointing, because most of them were people who seemed worth description. Also, while I still appreciated the literary device of jumping around in time, it felt much more haphazard in this book. I suppose that has something to do with the decreased role of determinism in this book as opposed to the last one, but the jumps felt a bit more awkward in this book. At first it does make sense when moving in relative time and actual space between Sandoz and Sophia, but the few jumps she makes to the time after Sandoz left felt forced, as though she had to fit in more exposition and foreshadowing, and this was the fastest way to do it.

I agree with the others who were left a bit disoriented by this book, but over all it was enjoyable. I felt as though its ending did detract a bit from the last book, but the bulk of the two were very complementary. I'm looking forward to our discussion, and to hearing other people's opinions.

Children of God Substantive

I had hoped there would be a big shocker like Professor Jackson had alluded to in class. I actually wasn't all that impressed, and felt the book had a more uplifting ending than the first. Granted, Sandoz had good things in life and then is sent back to Rakhat. But I kind of had the idea that would happen from the beginning.

I enjoyed how the book skipped back and forth between the three sides. Call me scatter-brained but by the time I was bored with one chapter about Sandoz the next normally had nothing to do with him.

Maybe this has to do with just my twisted logic or something, but I actually started to feel bad for Supaari.

I guess in the end I'm like Jen and Tim in that I don't really know what to say about the book.

Children of God

I was glad to return to Children of God after Todorov more so than the other science fiction books we read because there was a sense of familiarity with the characters. PTJ said we'd be shocked early on and I'll admit I was. So when Russell revealed that Sofia was still alive, my jaw dropped. I wouldn't say the miscommunication between Supaari and Sandoz on 51 was shocking as in "never saw that coming". In The Sparrow Supaari is seen as different from the other Jana'ata and part of me refused to believe that he would just sell Sandoz away to Hlavin Kitheri. The line that got me was Supaari leaving Galatna Palace "believing that he had done right by Sandoz" (52). That scene reveals that Sandoz unknowingly brought it upon himself. Related to that, on page 290, John wonders what would happen if it was Emilio's fault.

"Listen, John prayed, I'm not telling You what to do, but if Emilio brought the rapes on himself somehow, and then Askama died because of that, it's bettter if he never understands, okay? In my opinion. You know what people can take, but I think You're cutting it pretty close here. Or maybe--help him make it mean something. Help him."

At that point, "oh no, what is Russell going to do? She's going to break Emilio again". Fortunately, that wasn't the case and things turned out relatively okay for Emilio in the end, which I think he deserved.

The Emilio from the end of The Sparrow, the one who didn't know whether to hate God or believe that this was all bad luck, is still present at the end of Children of God. On page 414, Emilio and Sofia say "I was done with God" "But He wasn't done with you" "Evidently not, either that, or this has been a run of bad luck of historic proportions". He is still not sure which it is, but is more accepting of the choice.

I was reading this book of 6 word memoirs called Not Quite What I was Planning. Found one that I swear Emilio could have written over the course of these two books: "I lost god. I found myself".

Todorov

I find myself kind of surprised by some of the other posts with regard to this as a strictly historical text. I was also surprised by the presentation of the presentation of the "discoverers" of America, but at the level of understanding afforded to the Spanish invaders and Todorov's restraint from completely demonizing the Spaniards. Of course part of my European history class in high school was taught using Howard Zinn, I suppose that's no great shock. I had always reduced the motives for conquest down to "gold, God, and glory," but I feel like this presented a slightly more balanced view. I appreciated his attempt to avoid the pitfalls of the dichotomies usually applied to this period, although I don't think that he can by any means be viewed as unbiased. I have a hard time accepting his extensive use of quotations as exclusively"letting the authors speak" as he terms it, and I would have at times appreciated more of his argument and less of him cutting and pasting theirs. That said, this was a really fascinating read, and his quotations gave great access to documents most of us would never have access to, or at the very least inclination to seek out.

With relation to science fiction, if you enjoyed this, pick up Card's Pastwatch at some point. Card notes his use of Todorov, but really it's an almost exact (fictionalized) version of Todorov's ideas. It strikes me how important for both Todorov and science fiction writers how important the idea of communication is. It's interesting to compare communication in Todorov to that in the Sparrow. Todorov notes that the conquistadors were interested only in finding the Spanish equivalents to words (when they bothered at all); Sandoz moved beyond that (he notes how careful he was to find out exactly what their words meant) but he still didn't bother with all of the signs and cultural symbols. Doesn't seem like a whole lot of progress to me. Ender's Game shows the same thing, we don't understand them, so lets eliminate them (which is much easier to deal with because, as Phil's discussion of the Sparrow alludes to, they're ugly). I suppose that most sci-fi is dystopian, but its still sad to see how little we have progressed, and how little authors envision us progressing.

Substanitive Conquest

Let me preface this by saying that I do not like discourse analysis (sorry Professor) also, I have not slept in a while, and that you should probably not read this if you have not read Children of God because I make no guarantees that I will not mention it in my post. Also, I am going to start with a rant about how Cortez knew what he was doing unlike the mission, and then try to move on to comparisons between the mindsets of Columbus and the two missions to Rakat. Finally, I hope to have another little rant about aesthetics.

To begin I look to the chapter Cortez and signs. Over and over again it reiterates how Cortez was constantly looking for more information and not trusting anyone. Why did our group not do this. Granted, they had a more peaceful intent than did Cortez, but at least he knew not to be a fool about things. We have, on a number of occasions and a number of blog posts suggested that they cannot be blamed for something we can spot as an error in hindsight. I argue, however, that Cortez's desire to learn and understand Montezuma and the Aztecs is essentially the same idea and if he thought to do it Emilio Sandoz and Company could have been able to do it as well.

Before moving on to columbus I also feel the need to mention Cortez's position in overthrowing the Aztecs as not being all that different from the position of Sofia as she lead the Runa against the Ja'anata. The book notes how Cortez's army is essentially some spanish Cavalry and a lot of native foot soldiers who had been oppressed by the Aztecs. We even see some aspects of Aztec determinism in Ja'anata life with regards to birth essentially serving as destiny.

If one puts the two Sandoz missions to Rakat together you total the misc. reasons for which Cristobal wanted to discover as well. The second mission covers wealth while the first one looks as beauty, learning, and the glorification of God. Columbus and the Jesuits share a certain presumptive success/fatalistic outlook on the mission. Both seem to believe God is leading them exactly where they want to go. If I did not know better I would say the Russell has read this piece.

The Conquest of America

High school history class programmed me to immediately think "God, gold, and glory" after hearing conquistador. And it doesn't seem that far off after reading Todorov, who went into greater detail than any high school history class. At times, it was painstakingly difficult to read quotation after quotation after quotation. I know he was trying to present an unbiased narrative of what happened through primary sources that I would never have read before, but halfway through I wished for more from Todorov, less Columbus/Cortes/Las Casas/etc.

That being said, it was interesting to read after The Sparrow, which kept popping up in my mind, but how couldn't it with all the talk of Columbus and divine intervention? He saw a lot of turtles on fenceposts, or the equivalent of such back in those days (mermaids, perhaps?). But reading about Cortes and the myth of Quetzalcoatl reminded me of Paul in Dune. During that class, a long long time ago, we brought up whether Paul manipulated the Fremen's belief in a messiah. It's a little fuzzy right now, but I thought I'd bring up that.

In preparation for PTJ's question about whether the Spaniards should have and/or could have done something different, in the text Todorov says "I do not want to suggest, by accumulating such quotations, that Las Casas or the other defenders of the Indians should, or even could, have behaved differently." (172). Interestingly, he doesn't mention Columbus or Cortes and instead focuses on defenders of the Indians or those that tried to learn about their culture. However, Cortes did learn the signs, but manipulated them against the Indians, leading to death and destruction. I don't know if Columbus or Cortes could have behaved differently because we're looking at it in hindsight.

Greed is Good :)

Just like the speech from the movie Wall Street, "Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind."

But maybe it doesn't always mark the "upward surge of mankind." Todorov paints a different picture of Columbus than most Americans, or myself, learn about. Basic history classes just go over how Columbus sailed to the New World, and that's it. Not that his main motivation was gold, like Todorov proves through journal entries from the man himself.

Another great line from the same movie is "Greed captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit." Columbus' expedition definitely benefited Europe, but what about the Native Americans? They didn't really go upward, they went down very violently, with the affects still manifesting to this day.

I found this a very interesting read. It most likely has to do with me being a history nut, but Todorov brings up ideas, and facts that challenge the popularly accept "history" about Columbus.

Columbus' mission was to find a route to Asia from the West, and Todorov points out how Columbus negated any argument, mainly by the natives, that challenges this. Renaming everything when it already has a name by the locals will just make things a bit worse. For those in the class that study foreign languages, you probably understand this. Most of you might think that Munich and Muechen are practically the same thing, and just because the Germans will know what city you are talking about when you say Munich doesn't mean that it is the proper name to use.

I thought Jen did a really good job pointing out somethings between Todorov and The Sparrow.

The Sparrow

Well, like Jen said, Sandoz's interrogation was very moving and almost heart-breaking to read. From the beginning, we the readers know that something bad is going to happen. The prologue begins with "It was predictable, in hindsight" and ends with "They meant no harm" (3). Cue dramatic music. I'm not too sure who Russell means by "they". It could be the Jesuits who wanted to visit Rakhat as soon as possible, which causes the mental and physical destruction of Sandoz. Or it could be the Jesuit party that unknowingly upset the ecological balance between Runa and Jana'ata by planting gardens. This made me wonder whether the Runa/Jana'ata meant any harm, which I have no clue. Maybe it will be resolved in the sequel. But back to the point (if I have one), Russell set up the story, letting the readers know that only Sandoz lives and a very basic understanding of how he was rescued. So we knew that he was found in a brothel and he killed a child, but actually reading his explanation of it was shocking, especially Askama's death.

"'Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it'"
"But the sparrow still falls" (401)

This was the only reference to the title I found in the book. It is obvious that Emilio represents the sparrow that falls and questions God after what happens to him. I looked up Matthew 10 verse 29 to see what followed and this is what I found:

29Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to
the ground apart from the will of your Father. 30And even the very hairs of
your head are all numbered. 31So don't be afraid; you are worth more than
many sparrows.

Verse 31 "So don't be afraid" just jumps out for me. It's like saying "Bad things are going to happen. It's inevitable," and then all of a sudden "You have value. Don't worry". Right now my thoughts are much like Felipe Reyes' "but the sparrow still falls".

Isn't it reassuring that we'll still be quoting movies like Young Frankenstein and The Prince Bride in 2059?

The Sparrow

I'm not real sure what to write, as Tim and Scott kind of covered what I was thinking. I might even be saying this as I just rewatched the anime Trinity Blood that has similar themes, except no alien species. Just good old Vatican against the "vampires," who are actually the descendants of a failed mission to Mars where they caught a local virus that made them drink human blood when they came back to the Earth. Feel free to wikipedia the anime, or I'll gladly let people borrow it or read some of the manga.

Just like Tim mentioned, I don't really understand why missionaries try to help people/species that don't want to be helped. Maybe I've just become fed up with Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on my door. You'd think after having a conversation with the Mormons, who apparently graduated from the same high school, telling them how we lived in Utah and are not interested that they would stop coming to my house. I feel that is kind of the same with the mission to Rakhat. The alien species was more concerned about everything but spirituality.

The Sparrow

This will be the third time today I have tried to write this (sorry it's a little late). Last time it was about 5:00 and almost as soon as I had the text box open I leaned back and feel asleep. That reminds me of the first time I read the book, I was about 3/4 of the way through (maybe even a little farther--just when Emilio finds out nothing he sent back was published) when midnight brought with it the close of my favorite coffee shop--where I happened to be reading. I was, however, so involved in the book that I had to walk across the street to Village Inn (a classy version of Dennys) and finally finished around 2:00 in the morning (just in case you were interested).

What kept me involved then, and many of you have commented on, is the religious/spiritual journey of Emilio, Job, or, the man who God gave everything to and then took that plus interest. I too found this especially moving--being an atheist who was raised Catholic. My second reading through--for this class--however, forced me to pay attention to something Scott touches on briefly in his post and that is the question of the other. Schmitt makes an interesting note that the friend enemy distinction is not a question of beauty, and it seems Russel almost directly confronts the idea of how beauty impacts our perception of the other. There are numerous times on earth, before they leave where it is pointed out that a race which creates such beautiful music must be good. I wonder what Sandoz thinks now. Once they are on the planet again, there is an alomst deliberate deception by Russel to lul her characters into a false sense of security because of the beauty of the VaRakahti--particularly the Runa.
I believe Schmitt would find the book especially pleasing, not because Sandoz is hirribly raped, but because the order/the mission seemed to confuse astetics (beauty v. ugly according to Schmitt) with the political. And while I don't believe the book was intended in this manner it could be easily read as a Science Fiction play on the follies of liberalsim.

If we take the idea we expressed early in class about science fiction being a means with which to critique society without doing so directly, yet more explicitly, drawing parallels between some alien or futuristic story and the problems of the world today. One could not outwardly criticize the ideals of modern liberal pacifism where friend and enemy becomes confused with civilized and uncivilized, democratic and undemocratic, good and bad. But if you create an alien world and have a group of explorers confuse Beauty and Ugly with Friend and Enemy then the situation becomes far enough detached that those criticisms are possible. They explicitly make the mistake of confusing the two and are explicitly rebuked for it. Again, I don't think that was the point, but it's a pretty intersting line of thought anyway.

Schmitt

Two thoughts I had on Schmitt, first (and I'm sure this is intentional) it is possible to engage his writing with almost every novel we have read this semester. I realize that we've avoided utopian visions of the future because, lets face it, dystopias engage with our historical and political contexts in far more interesting and relevant ways. It seems though, that every author we've read agrees with Schmitt's assertion that in most cases other=enemy. While most of the protagonists we've read about don't necessarily occupy the moral high ground, it doesn't really matter, conflicts are possible because he is a stranger (Schmitt, 27). Like Liz mentioned, this goes straight to the heart of the human bugger conflict, but in this case not only are the buggers alien and strangers they are also (to the humans) morally evil and aesthetically ugly, giving humans all the more reason to exterminate them. Also, I found Schmitt's discussion on 54 very interesting in relation to not just science fiction in general, but specifically Card. Schmitt almost seems to imply that an enemy outside the planet could end friend-enemy dichotomies among humans, Card seems to agree with this in the form of the IF bringing universal stability to the world while the threat of the buggers was still present. However, literally as soon as the buggers were destroy, the friend-enemy paradigm switched back to earth as the various political groups began battling among themselves over the future of earth.
On a probably slightly less fruitful note, the historian part of my brain wouldn't let go of the fact that Schmitt ended up being a Nazi. I realize that circumstances and moments in history sometimes sweep people along with them, but it was really disturbing to me that someone who could so clearly visualize the dangerous shape that politics could take when the enemy became "an outlaw of humanity" (79) would be a party to the atrocities of the Nazi party.

Political?

In contrast to what Sara suggested right below me I happen to like the fun philosophical way of defining terms endlessly. I did find myself a little bored by the section that defined everything political had previously falsely been identified with. The overarching concept of what it is to be political is something I had never thought of in such explicit terms before and something that made perfect since once I read it. The idea of political being the realm of defining friend and foe is an absolutely perfect description. I just wish my political science education was more directly focused on this specific issue. Seems to me political science should be more focused on defining political and means of understanding friend and foe as opposed to all the boring (ok, so I like it) voting behavior stuff we do study.

The Concept of the Political

Reading Schmitt's essay was less than exciting for me. He spent much of the essay trying to differentiate terms and at points I felt like knowing German or philosophy wouldn't have hurt. As Tim pointed out, reading novels can be more interesting than essays because of the format. Which is why I'm glad we read Ender's Game before The Concept of the Political because it helped applying the humans vs. bugger situation to the friend-enemy concept.

The buggers are the perfect example of the other (or enemy when compared to humans) because they are "existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case conflicts with [them] are possible" (27). In Ender's Game, the IF saw the situation as us versus them, friend versus enemy, kill them before they kill all of humanity. However, I think Schmitt doesn't see it as black and white. On page 27 he says "the morally evil, aesthetically ugly or economically damaging need not necessarily be the enemy". Being classified as the enemy doesn't mean all the negative aspects of other antitheses apply. Especially since on the other side of the fence the roles are reversed. Schmitt goes on to say that the friend-enemy antithesis is not fixed and "in no way implies that one particular nation must forever be the friend or enemy of another specific nation" (34). Here's where I think the IF made a mistake in assuming that the buggers would only ever be their enemy and set out to negate their existence, as Schmitt would say.

And along with the bugger wars, Ender's Game looks into Earthside relations with the hegemony and Warsaw Pact. But I'll save that for after class, where I hope to understand Schmitt's concept a little better.

The Concept of the Political

Just like I said back with Weber, I feel like I've heard everything here before. Granted, I took Modernist Explosion here where the entire course looks at the Wiemar Republik, and I'm taking German as a language. Germany after WWI wanted to figure out why they lost, they were the best professionally trained army in the world and they lost without the fight ever being on German soil. Everyone who was anyone came up with theories, some more popular than others - see Nazis. I found it quite funny that Schmitt decided to piratically make everything an "antithesis of political."

And I totally agree with Schmitt saying that confusion arises from the concepts of Justice and Freedom being used to legitimize political ambitions or demoralize the enemy. These concepts are loosely defined, one man's justice and freedom might not be another's. Just look at Shari'a law, that's justice and freedom for some Muslim countries, but to the West it is repression. You can even look at authoritarian states if you want to stay away from religious issues, North Korea doesn't have its laws revolved around the tenets of a religion, unless Kim-Jon-Il-ism counts.

And to be the "devil's advocate" here for some of the numerous discussions we've had on morality and the like. Its all our faults for not taking the time to truly understand our "enemies"
and "allies." Everyone has blame, but one side or factor will make a choice and live with it. Hindsight is 20/20 after all, and I'm sure everyone has regrets about mistakes they've made with people, or the lack of understand of the "enemy."

Ender's Game Reflection

I had forgotten exactly how much I enjoy this book, and it was really interesting to read it now that I'm a bit older. Also I thought that some of the letters included in the introduction were wonderful to read, it seems like there's something in this book that many people can relate to. In terms of the class though, when I read this I couldn't help but compare Ender to Yod. Yod said at one point that a weapon shouldn't be self aware, and largely because of that he decided to destroy himself. It struck me that the teachers and commanders were trying to turn Ender into a self-aware weapon just like Yod. They knew that they might destroy his life, but as long he fulfilled the purpose he was bred for it didn't really matter. Granted , Graff felt some sympathy for Ender, but that didn't stop his treatment of him. Once Ender had fulfilled his purpose he had apparently outlived his usefulness on Earth, his return would have certainly given one of the warring countries an advantage and that would not have been acceptable to anyone. He was still young, but I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened had he not been able to escape all of the pressures from earth by leaving for the new colonies. I can't imagine he could have held up indefinitely trapped in the outpost, and I don't think he would have willingly submitted to Peter's plans for the world.

I also read this at the same time as I was reading Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, also by Card. When looked at together it really struck me how much easier it is to deal with an other who is an alien rather than an other who is human. The people of Earth have absolutely no doubt that the Buggers are evil and should be eradicated. Ender points out during the trial of Graff that people called him a cold blooded killer for the murders of Stilson and Bonzo, but that no one saw killing billions of Buggers as a crime. It wasn't until Ender became Speaker for the Dead that there was any indication that people saw the Buggers as anything but a deadly pest to be eradicated. It was much harder for Card to deal with human others however; he couldn't have easily looked at the native peoples from Columbus's perspective, it would make most modern readers incredibly uncomfortable to be expected to sympathize with a main character who saw other people as subhuman pests to be eradicated or exploited. Instead, that book had to be set from the perspective of enlightened historians from the future who could see the errors of Columbus's ways. Had Columbus encounter aliens rather than people however, the book could have been written from his perspective, rather than by people observing him. Condoning genocide of something that looks completely different from us is much easier for most readers to swallow. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that Card had other reasons for writing Pastwatch as he did, but even if this wasn't in his mind, I think it's relevant to themes we've been discussing.

Ender's Game and Shadow of the Hegemon

Since I read one of the sequels to Ender's Game I can't help but draw some things from both. First off, I wasn't surprised when I found out Mrs. Wiggins "was" Mormon. From the conversation she has with Bean in Shadow of the Hegemon, it made sense as to why having more than two children was important. After all, it takes 4 kids to get an ancestor out of hell.

I also wasn't that surprised that the "games" were real. I actually expected it before I even picked up the book when Professor Jackson mentioned that there would be a big shocker in the story. Maybe I'm just jaded from my military upbringing, that in war everything is possible. I haven't seen the tactics used in the novel in real life, but we do have simulations like Red Flag in Nevada that are pretty darn real. As my Dad has told me combat is the best training possible. Both really interested me. I loved the tactics and strategy I could easily see in Shadow, as it was countries fighting each other not humans vs buggers.

The whole Battle School concept isn't that far off to me. We have military academies at West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy in Colorado. There are War Colleges in Kansas and Virginia, for example, where military officers from the US and abroad come to study tactics and battle strategies. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen my Dad writing papers on past conflicts, some as currently as the Kosovo Campaign of 1998. We even have auxiliaries of all the branches for young kids to get involved with. Taking kids at 6 is extreme, but you can join one of the auxiliaries when you're 10.