Last weekend, I finished listening to a great audio edition of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game. I wish I could link you to a sample. The voices were great, and in a commentary at the end of the book, Card says he prefers audiobook to other mediums of delivering story, particularly his stories. The listener can’t skip or skim through a story and miss things, diminishing his experience. In another recording I have through Audible.com, Card says he is glad he listened to Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, because he believes he would have skipped parts of it near the beginning and not enjoyed it as much as he did at the end. His family still reads books to each other, like people used to do before TV.
Ender’s Game was a great story. Because I loved it and knowing so many others loved it too, I wonder if one of the heartstrings of humanity is dedicated to stories of brilliant children who face great peril–or to put it more broadly, thinking of The Hobbit and LOTR, stories of the humble, the small or weak, facing insurmountable evil or overcoming persecution. Why do we love those stories? It’s David vs. Goliath in as many settings and circumstances as possible.