Friday, August 15, 2008

The Man of Many Genres

Orson Scott Card is one of the most superior science fiction authors of our time. In one of his most recent novels, Empire, he disregards aliens and space shuttles to write about presidential assassinations and Al Qaeda actions. At first I was not sure whether Card should write political fiction as opposed to sticking with his science fiction bestsellers. It turns out, Card can write anything and surpass most authors easily.

Empire begins in a Middle Eastern village. A small team of Americans led by a Captain Reuben Malich are gaining trust to the civilians so that they can catch some people that the United States suspect to be Al Qaeda operatives.

The first chapter may be the weakest part in the book. Yet it too is very good. After Malich and the others get back from the Middle East, Malich gets his gold oak leaves, the insignia of Major in the United States Army.

Soon, Captain Bartholomew Coleman gets assigned to Major Malich. They are together when they see and almost prevent the assassination of the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The plot thickens when the readers discover that Malich's Special Operations job three months ago was to figure out a way to kill the President so that the White House could take necessary precautions against this event.

The precautions were not taken, Malich's plan was followed to the tee, and now Malich and Coleman know two things: one, there is a leak in the White House that would give the information to terrorists, and two, Malich is going to get a lot of bad publicity as the soldier that supposedly tried to save the President after figuring out how to kill him just a few months before.

The story goes on from there with new enemies to the government, more of Malich's friends, and plenty of intelligent writing and action. Card creates an excellent story that will soon become a video game by Chair Entertainment, and the film writes of which have been acquired by Warner Bros.

Card shows that he is an excellent novelist of every genre in Empire. It is a very, very good book. No political fiction collection is complete without Empire.

http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Science-Fiction-Orson-Scott/dp/0765355221/ref=pd_bbs_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218846971&sr=8-3

Grade: 9

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