Story: 7.5 / 10
Characters: 7.5
Setting: 7.0
Prose: 6.5 ( )

La posibilidad de una nueva guerra civil en Estados Unidos como consecuencia de la virulencia de los enfrentamientos políticos entre republicanos y demócratas, entre derecha e izquierda. Un problema que no es exclusivo de los Estados Unidos de América...

The message is clear, especially in the first part of the book & the afterword by Card - the screamers on the left & right of our 2 party system are becoming the icons & dividing the country. Thus, Card portrays his opinion of one possible lead-in to an American Civil War II. Empire is a fun read. Lots of action. The narrator murders some location names and author believes that potatoes are grown in Northern Idaho (they're not--it's wheat and timber country). Further, authori's use of the word "jeesh" as a substitute for "team" reminds the reader of Ender's Game. ( )

I really liked the beginning of this book, but I felt it petered off in the end. ( )

I liked this book not so much for the action but for the heroes it portrayed, and some of the random ideas he throws out comparing the US to Rome. You might not agree with him (I'm not sure I do) but they were thought-provoking.

A number of people have written about how the US might follow the Roman Republic to a loss of democracy and turn into an empire. This is Orson Scott Card's view on how it could happen--on the beginning of the transition, anyway. It's hard to explain without giving spoilers, but let's just say that the heroes in this book wind up getting used to promote the remarkable ascendancy of someone who just might turn out to be a Caesar--and at the end of the book, we're still not sure if that's a good thing or not. The book starts out with a truly great, moral hero, a man you really admire, and then follows things from someone who was basically his sidekick, but who has to step up when things go horribly wrong.

Card tried, I think, to be somewhat balanced in this book, portraying both the left and right as threats to democracy. I'm not sure his portrayal succeeds here. Well, it succeeds at being balanced, but maybe not plausible. It makes for a pretty good story, anyway. This didn't detract much from the story. After all, you usually don't care *that* much where the bad guys came from; you mostly care where the good guys are going to. ( )