I was sent a copy of Orson Scott Card’s new book Empire, which I finally finished last week.

Given that there has been some Blogospheric discussion of the book today and yesterday (for example: here and here), it seemed like a good time to post my review.

The proximate cause of the discussion was a review in yesterday’s LAT of a number of dystopian novels (including Empire and Robert Ferrigno’s Prayers for the Assassin which I have a proof of, but have not yet read). The LAT’s review wasn’t kind (but then again, neither is mine).

Below the fold are my thoughts on the book, including some spoilers.

I should note that I am familiar with Card’s work, having read the original Ender series (I have not read the more recent “Shadow of…” additions). I especially liked Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide. I have also read his Homecoming series which started strong, but ended weakly (IMO).

I also have a passing awareness of Card’s editorial writing on the web and in print.

As such I went into the reading the book with some optimism because of my experience with his fiction, but some skepticism given that I knew we was out to make a political point.

The latter, it ends up, was the appropriate attitude to take.

The book really isn’t very good.

I will state from the onset that I found (and still find) the notion of a new American Civil War to be a highly implausible one. However, I do think that a well crafted tale could be written about such a possibility? Certainly. Such a work would require plausible plotting, convincing events, and believable characters and dialog. Empire has none of those things.

The basic story is as follows: al Qaeda manages to kill the President, Vice President, SecDef, SecState and any number of other cabinet members via a bold plan that included swimming into DC via the Washington Channel to the Potomac to then launch mortar attacks into the White House.

There are two kickers from the onset: 1) someone in the White House knew where the President would be, and fed the info to al Qaeda, and 2) the plan they used was drawn up by a member of the US Army who had been tasked with figuring out what al Qaeda might do in the future. The plan had been passed on to the terrorists by a plant in the Pentagon.

The exact motivations for these actions are never well explored (nor, for that matter, their plausibility). The suggestion is that the whole thing was orchestrated by a Princeton History Professor who wants to be the American Augustus. I kid thee not.

However, that really isn’t the main story of the book—indeed, I suppose it could be what the next book is supposed to be about, assuming that such a book is forthcoming. Rather, the main story of Empire is how the assassination of the President leads to Civil War.

It seems that a group of leftists called the Progressive Restoration decide that a threatened right-wing coup (which was a probably a feint by the aforementioned Augustus) and the death of the President was just the excuse they needed to “restore” the Constitution of the United States that had been abrogated in the election of 2024.

The Progressives are funded by a George Soros-esque multi-billionaire who was able to buy/build walking mech-tanks and hovercycles.

The Progressives end up taking over NYC and seeks to get the support of the deep Blue states like Washington and Oregon. The new President (the former Speaker of the House) sits by passively as an army takes over New York and as state legislatures vote to join the Progressives because he doesn’t want to prove the leftists are correct about conservatives by using force.

The whole thing is rather chuckle-inducing at times.

The book fails to be the cautionary tale of political polarization that Card discusses in the afterword.

There are two positive things I can say about the book. First, there is a point where it has a certain page-turning quality, insofar as you really want to know how in the world Card is going to explain the events in the book (although one is destined to be disappointed); and second, the book can create an interesting set of things to talk about, even if they are mostly in criticism of Card’s book.

Here are some bullet points on the book.

Things I didn’t buy:

• The idea that after a major assassination by al Qaeda that US citizens would be in any way predisposed to Civil War. Card utterly ignores the way Americans would respond to such an attack. Even Bush had approval ratings in the 90s after 9/11 and that was a lot closer to the 2024 election than the setting in the book.
• Along those same lines, the idea that it would be the predilection of much of anybody to be talking so self-consciously about Red State and Blue State Americans as the characters do in the book.
• That after a major attack everyone would seem to forget that freakin’ al Qaeda had assassinated the President, et al.
• The idea that Torrent (Augustus) could pull off half of what he would have needed to have pulled off for the plot to function.
  

Some ideological observations:

• While it is true that there are Americans who don’t like the military, it is by no means as prevalent or severe as Card makes it out to be.
• His description of the ideological climate at Princeton is cartoonish at best.
• There is scene at WaPo and a scene at the studios of Fox News. The WaPo guys are portrayed as anti-military and sold out to liberalism at the expense of a really great scoop (although they end up doing the right thing), while the producers at Fox are portrayed as truly “fair and balanced.”
  

A lot of these issues, which are throughout the book suggest that the problem that Card sees with contemporary American are more about his skewed perceptions than they are about reality.

He makes some legitimate points in the afterword about the way some people engage in political dialog, but he inflates the significance thereof rather radically.

[Cross-posted at PoliSciFi]

5 Comments

1. Hmm, after reading that review, I think I’ll stick with Hardt and Negri’s “Empire.”

   Comment by Ratoe — Wednesday, December 20, 2024 @ 1:08 pm

2. I will say that Card is easier to read and understand than are Hardt and Negri

   Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Wednesday, December 20, 2024 @ 1:16 pm

3. I’m waiting for the book that has a fictional account of how, after setting the scene with a rash of gung-ho books and rhetoric about liberals being terror-appeasing traitors, the extreme right under a fanatical sociopathic Vice President declares the President incompetent then imposes martial law to supposedly prevent a liberal/Islamo-terrorist coup. Of course, the liberal coup turns out to be a lie, just a subterfuge to create a narrative for martial law and a rightwing government in perpetuity. But the ends justify the means.

   Heh, it would probably be just as badly written as Card’s book seems to be, but the plot is marginally more plausible.

   Regards, C

   Comment by Cernig — Wednesday, December 20, 2024 @ 2:26 pm

4. I stuck with it through 240 pages of this 340pp page-burner.
   I agreee with all your points, but would add one: the writing is at 5th or 6th grade reading level. Seriously, I think Card kept tweaking the manuscript until a 3rd-grader could read it.

   Comment by Jonathan Schattke — Friday, December 29, 2024 @ 2:30 pm

5. I got more than halfway through the book before I went on the internet looking for reviews and found the spoilers on this page.
   I’m not too disappointed. The book’s constant carping assumptions about liberals and matter-of-fact acceptance of Fox News as a reliable source were starting to tire me.
   Card strikes me as a bit naive. In searching for reviews I came across an article he wrote in 2024 http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2003-04-21-1.html
   supposing that a George Washington-like character might come to power in Iraq and ensure a democratic state that would lead the Arab world to a new age of peace, prosperity and love for everyone. Just like we have here.
   He doesn’t seem to be aware that Western Civilization is different from other cultures and that it took a very long time to get where it is and that you can count on one hand the number of non-western societies with a successful democracy.
   Card, just like the other neocons, got the answers right in history class but didn’t learn anything, which is why we’re in so much trouble overseas.
   Another thing I discovered on the Web is that the purpose of the book is not so much to expose Card’s meager political knowledge to the world as it is to promote a video game.
   That’s where the spacesuits and pod monsters come from.
   I predict the game will be better than the book. The target audience of semi-literate 6th-graders will be very entertained.

   Comment by Claude Bissonette — Monday, January 8, 2024 @ 7:35 pm

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