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A War Of Gifts by Orson Scott Card
01/03/2008 . Source: Rod MacDonald 
CD. pub: Macmillan Audio. 2 CDs 4.5 hours. Price: $24.95 (US), $31.00 (CAN). ISBN: 978-1-89397-631-6) read by Scott Brick and Stefan Rudnicki . Buy A War Of Gifts in the USA - or Buy A War Of Gifts in the UK  check out website: www.audiorenaissance.com
'A War Of Gifts' was a short tale Christmas Card offering from Orson Scott Card, the author of the 'Ender's Game' series of novels. While it is not really necessary to read previous stories to understand it, a knowledge of 'Ender's World' probably helps to some extent.
From a personal point of view, I do not experience a great affinity to Orson Scott Card's writing. Also, from what I perceive, his political and religious tendencies are different from my own. While this shouldn't make any difference as far as his writing is concerned, feelings come through sufficiently enough to make me find it distasteful. As you will probably gather, I didn't like this book.
Basically this is a convoluted story about a boy called Zeck Morgan from North Carolina. The son of a fearful fundamentalist preacher, he is mentally disturbed from a lifetime of beatings from his father and has an absurd code of ethics ingrained in his behaviour which contribute to the conflict of this story. When the boy is sent to Battle School, he is regarded as a bit weird and becomes isolated.
Zeck causes trouble over the exchange of Christmas presents between a couple of Dutch boys. This practice is not allowed in the school and Zeck turns into a stool pigeon. Muslims somehow become involved and a whole lot of conflict leads to the eventual shunning of the boy. It is left to Ender Wiggin to sort out the problems.
This isn't really Science Fiction. The story could be told anywhere at any time and you're left with the feeling that the author has used this genre, like many others before, to propagate ideas he has about present situations in human culture and society.
In saying this, it must be said that the writing is actually very good. Descriptions are excellent and the dialogue seems to be natural. Despite not liking what he writes, Card's ability as a writer is of the highest degree. Of course, not everyone is as disagreeable as myself so there must be enough people out there, which book sales confirm, to make Card a very popular writer.
This is the audio book version. It's voiced by Scott Brick and Stefan Rudnicki, familiar voices to listeners of audio books of this nature. As usual, the narration is very professional and they certainly make the most out of the text. My only fault with this version is that at almost $20 I think it is slightly over-priced. Two CDs and three hours is what you'll get for your money.
The other problem with 'A War Of Gifts' is that it is a Christmas story and, thankfully, that period of sickening rampant commercialisation has passed. However, I'm sure Christmas trees and presents will be back on the menu by August.
Rod MacDonald
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