Songmaster

Rating:
Summary: An inferior early effort from Card.
Review: Orson Scott Card burst into fame with his multiple award winning novel "Ender's Game". "Songmaster" is a novel from earlier in his writing career, and like "Ender's Game" features a young boy prodigy as the protagonist, a child who is being nurtured by adults for a key role in society. In "Songmaster", that child is Ansset, a young boy whose brilliant musical gifts are being developed at the "Songhouse". More so than any of his contemporaries, Ansset is able to create music that reflects the feelings of his audience, and expresses the full range of human emotions through song. People who enjoy the emotive power of music - as I do - will find this a compelling and fascinating premise. Under the expert guidance of his songmaster Esste, Ansset is groomed for the highest role possible: to be a Songbird who moves and influences great audiences with his music. Ansset proves to be a Songbird so rare, he becomes Songbird for the emperor Mikal himself. Card describes Ansset's progress to the very heights of political power, to his final return to the Songhouse as an anonymous old man. Some have even interpreted the novel as a retelling of David's rise from singer to king in place of Saul, although personally I found little evidence for such a parallel.

The characterization is very good, and the concept of the Songhouse and using music to reflect and convey emotion is an interesting and powerful one. But the novel doesn't consistently live up to its promise. Although it has superlative moments of beauty and passion, "Songmaster" is in the end inferior to the brilliant Ender's Game series that Card would later produce. Most unexpected (and perhaps disturbing to some readers), is the prominent place Card gives to homosexuality in the novel. Several homosexual relations are explored, and this is especially surprising given Card's Mormon background. Depending on your personal convictions, many readers like myself will find this an element that detracts significantly from whatever excellence the rest of the novel offers.

In the end, "Songmaster" has its place in the Orson Scott Card canon, but this early effort is a more lowly effort, and I'm not planning on keeping my copy of this book having read it. Science fiction fans will be grateful that Card's writing career didn't end with "Songmaster", but progressed from these early beginnings to the excellence of "Ender's Game". - GODLY GADFLY


Rating:
Summary: A Song of Power
Review: Card seems to have a predilection for having child protagonists. But not just any children, rather children who are special, who are prodigies, who in many ways are far stronger than most adults. This book is no exception, with Ansset as the premier Songbird of his day. Songbirds are specially trained child singers, trained in not just the basics of music, but more importantly in how to read the emotional makeup of their audience and express it in their songs.

Ansset is assigned to be the Songbird for the Emperor Mikal, a brutal man who thinks nothing of wiping out the entire population of a planet to further his ends. But the end Mikhal is driving toward is lasting peace throughout the galaxy - a truly benevolent dictator. It is just this moral ambiguity that Ansset sees and understands, just as he can understand, accept, and reciprocate the love of Josif, a bisexual who can only be attracted to one person at time.

In fact, there are no hard and fast moral laws laid down in this book. Fraud, kidnapping, assassination, murder, homosexuality, pedophilia, devotion, political machinations, and, yes, even true love all receive an examination here, and each item is shown in more than one light. A good part of this book's strength lies within these examinations, which are shown by the events and people Ansset is exposed to, rather than by any sort of expository dialogue. The rest of the strength lies within the raw emotion that sings throughout this book, an almost poetic handling of what would be in lesser hands a very ugly set of happenings. Characterization is excellent, for not just Ansset but also all the players around him: Mikal, Ricktors, Esste, Kya-Kya - each are unique individuals that breathe life into this work.

Not so good is the believability of the basic scenarios, from Ansset's incredible ability as a very young child to read the deep emotional makeup of those around him and sing that back to them, certain fighting skills that Ansset learns, even to the musical language members of the Songhouse converse with. While Card makes a good stab at presenting these items in such a way as to try and make them believable, and while reading it these doubts can easily be pushed into the background, after closing the book they leave a bit of a sense of something not quite right, a lack of direct applicability to the 'real' world. While this is not a great flaw, it does bring this book down from the level he achieved in Ender's Game, making it merely very good as opposed to that book's greatness.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

Rating:
Summary: Another compelling OSC novel
Review: �Songmaster� is, as usual, an ambitious work of sci-fi from the pen of Orson Scott Card. I have been familiar with Card for some time now, and his thoughtful brand of writing shines through within this novel. Card is not afraid to explore emotions, good or bad, and has a knack for exploring truths.

As a science fiction story, �Songmaster� does not bog down the reader with overly descriptive science; rather, Card is more concerned with creating a world that is an expression of ideas made flesh. Great sci-fi can project ideas far into the future, and create worlds in which today�s ideas have been brought to their logical conclusion. �Songmaster� is set at least 20,000 years from now, so parallels to today�s world are few; however human behavior and motivations are still very much the same as they are now. Only the surroundings have changed.

�Songmaster� tells the life story of Ansset, a boy being trained since birth in the Songhouse, a place where young people are trained to be Songbirds, the most colorful and esteemed singers in the galaxy. Wealthy individuals from across the galaxy purchase the services of the Songhouse singers, many paying extravagant amounts of money for the privilege. When the Emperor requests a Songbird, it is many years before a suitable singer can be found to serve his individual needs properly. That Songbird is Ansset.

Card once again uses his writing gifts to produce another well-drawn picture of childhood. Card always knows how to express the point of view of young people, and �Songmaster� is no exception. He can express joy, sorrow, grief, guilt, laughter, embarrassment, pain (both mental and physical), and the full spectrum of human emotions. There are scenes in Songmaster which make you want to cry, and also scenes of great beauty and happiness.

As Ansset grows, so do the characters he interacts with. Each person he comes into contact with is changed in some way through the songs he sings. The ideas herein are not exactly new, but Card has such a powerful voice that he can make even a potentially silly idea leap off the page with flair.

I have to lower my rating to 4, only because I think Card missed an opportunity about ¾ through this novel. SPOILER ALERT � do not read the rest of this paragraph if you haven�t read the book. Ansset grows into manhood over the course of this novel, and loses is ability to sing. Ansset then takes a governmental position, and we follow his career as it unfolds. Unfortunately, I think these events are not fully realized, and I think more could have been made regarding the loss of his singing skills. The closing portions of �Songmaster� redeem Card and prove that he certainly DID have powerful ideas for ending the novel, and that the �weaker� sections were a fluke, not an indication of Card giving up on the story.

All in all, this novel ranks high among my recent reads. I strongly recommend �Songmaster� for those familiar with the Ender books. Many ideas here have parallels within the Ender books, and fans of that series would be missing out if they choose to skip this novel. �Songmaster� is another compelling novel from Card, and worthy of reading time and again.