Having set aside my higher expectations after Earth Unaware, I was anticipating pretty much a simple adventure story this time around. That's pretty much what I got with Earth Afire. Unexpectedly, though, we were introduced to Mazer Rackham in this book, and he was unfortunately less than impressive as a character. In Ender's Game, Card writes a character who is convincingly super-intelligent yet childish. Mazer is supposed to be cut from similar if not quite identical cloth, but he doesn't carry it convincingly.

On the whole I was disappointed with this book more than the first.

I ended up reading Orson Scott Card's First Formic War series because of a discussion I had with a friend of mine about the central moral question of Ender's Game: was Ender's action to end his war moral or not? It would be a spoiler to describe exactly what he did; suffice it to say that it's a close call based on the available information, and our opinions differed based primarily on whether the books in this series were considered canon or not. She had read them, I had not; but I had read the sequels to Ender's Game and she had not. She thought the Formics had attacked first and Ender's actions were ultimately justified; I thought the question of Ender's Game hinged on the crucial first contact question of "What did the Formics know and when did they know it?"

So I decided to read the series and find out, at least the first book (Earth Unaware). I should point out that I avoided reading the series previously because I tend to avoid "Big name author with unknown coauthor" pairings; they are usually basically ghostwriting arrangements, and while sometimes it works, too often it doesn't. This time around, it's more complex than that.

For the rest of the review, with very mild spoilers, click below.

The Edge of Tomorrow is a Tom Cruise military sci-fi vehicle, and it's a bundle of contradictions that actually work out to a pretty good movie. Let me start by hitting you with what is obvious from the trailer: alien invasion, near-future powered armor. Those aspects are mostly handled well. The power armor is much more realistic than, say, Tony Stark's Iron Man armor; it's basically strength-enhancing and load-carrying with some token "armor" and a few mounted weapons. Cruise even gets a chance to lampshade the fact that he isn't wearing a helmet. (The real reason is that he is getting paid millions for his face to be visible, of course). The aliens are alien aliens and not very comprehensible to humanity.

I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that there's a military focus to the movie, and I was skeptical about how Hollywood would handle a movie about military heroics in an alien invasion. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don't. The stereotype of the military being dumb misfits was there in spades. On the other hand, clearly that wasn't everyone; the main character was thrown in with the misfits on account of an act of utter cowardice early in the movie when he is told that he will actually be expected to fight.

The other thing I can say without spoiling too much is that the movie is a transparent ... homage? Reference? Tribute? I'm not sure.. to D-Day. Aside from releasing the movie on the literal anniversary of the invasion, the aliens invade Europe, are apparently based in Germany, and kill everyone. They are opposed by a US and UK lead counter invasion from the West and a simultaneous invasion from Russia to the East. A good chunk of the movie concerns events on the beach at Normandy. We're left to imagine whether they herded people into camps and made them wear yellow stars first, I guess.

I will say more with spoilers below, but the short summary is, it's a good movie, both as general entertainment, as a sci-fi experience, and as a military war movie. Just recite "These are individuals, not stereotypes" occasionally when the condescension gets too thick.

The trailers sort of hint at the third sci-fi concept in the movie, which is where the main character goes roughly 24 hours back in time each time he gets killed. (Never mind why, that really would be a spoiler). This was pretty well handled, and adds a very interesting intellectual feel to the movie. The characters abuse it mercilessly in a way that actually adds another layer to the whole; it's basically what video gamers do to beat a game. Get killed, go back to your last save game and try again until you get it right.