Hart's Hope by Orson Scott Card Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Hart's Hope
Book Review: Deep Fantasy
Summary: 5 Stars
I have never liked a fantasy book so much! I never read fantasy. It isn't my favorite genre, since I'm more of a realist person. Yet, this book is so unique and deep; it is touching, and it provokes the deep thoughts of the human body. I cried a little at the end! It is a good book with a good plot as well; it has a steady plot with events that are amazing. Trust me, you won't be dissapointed with this!Book Review: Good, dark fairytale with a somewhat weak ending.
Summary: 4 Stars
I have a hard time deciding what to write here. Orson Scott Card is able to write passages that literally take my breath away. There was one in "Ender's Game" and there was one at the end of a chapter in this book (you'll probably know it when you read it, and rather than spoil it I'll merely say it reminded me of the famous "For want of a nail the kingdom was lost" bit).
Make no mistake, this is a dark fairy tale. While he doesn't go into overly graphic details, he gives enough so that the reader can clearly 'see' what's happening. There's blood, sex and violence (sometimes all three at once) throughout. The characters are memorable. The writing is clear and sharp. The connections between the main characters are somewhat complicated, making them even more interesting. I felt the choice of 'summarizing' the chapter in the voice of the narrator, at the beginning of each chapter, to be a somewhat odd choice. In many respects this ties into the ending, but it removes much of the suspense. Still, there were other twists that kept things fresh.
Two things kept me from giving it 5 stars. The first is that the book meandered a bit in the middle. Yes, most of the meandering had elements in it that became important later, but the flow bogged down a bit.
But the ending failed for me and is what kept me from giving it 5 stars. There were a couple of elements here. The first was quite simply a typo in the very last paragraph that forced me to stop to see if I'd misunderstood the thrust of the sentence. I hadn't, but it broke the flow of a well written piece of writing.
*mild spoiler alert*
The book also tried to throw a twist in at the very end. The interesting thing is, I'd been thinking about the twist beforehand because I'd just discussed a similar concept with a friend about the use of the 2nd person 'voice' in writing. It was a clever idea, but the execution just didn't work for me, mainly because I never 'identified' with the character I was supposed to, to make it work properly. Now, maybe Card just meant for the reader to feel like he/she was reading a story written, rather than hearing a story spoken, in which case it may have worked better. But I ended with the latter impression not the former, and it just didn't mesh.
Finally, the story introduced a couple of characters as friends of one of the main characters, but they were almost completely absent at the climax and were brought up again briefly at the very end making me wonder where they were at the climax itself.
* end mild spoilers *
This was still a very good book, and had a couple of clever writing ideas, but the problems (or at least what I perceived as such) dragged it down a notch.
Book Review: Highly original
Summary: 4 Stars
I found this to not be Orson Scott Card's very best, but it's his earlier work, and like Songmaster it's full of brutality and harshness, devoid of descriptive detail, yet incredibally well-drawn out. (That's one of his trademarks; you never know what the characters physically look like). This has to be one of the most original fantasy novels ever. It avoids mythical creatures, magic wands, quests and swordfights - Card knows what really matters. Her presents the morality and emotion and deeper meaning of things. He makes no attempt to make the medieval setting of this book any less harsh (and that's somewhat unique). It's rather graphic, and there seems to be not a kind character here - so it's hard to find too much altruism or morality. Perhaps, Card seems to suggest with this book, the world isn't really like that.
The format is very clever and original, and somewhat hard to describe. The ending was weak and typical in some ways (at first) but when you got the twist ending, it kind of makes up for it. In all it could warrant 4 1/2 stars or even five. But you come away from it feeling it's just not quite as good as some of his other books. That said though, it's a very finely crafted book, very engaging and intelligent.
Book Review: Meh
Summary: 2 Stars
It was deep, complicated, interwoven, interesting.
All of these are plusses.
It is quite different from Cards' other books though, not really what I was expecting. It's a decent book though.
Book Review: Misery love company
Summary: 3 Stars
Card is an excellent writer, but far too many of his books are about gifted and sensitive children living in misery. This one spreads the misery to pretty much everyone in the book, and by the end I was just glad to have it over.