both two truly amazing books

Martian Chronicles or Ender's Game. Both very good science fiction novels.

Your heading implies a question? Your comment is they are both good.

IF I were voting for a better, I would have to go with Martian Chronicles. If I remember correctly, however, Martian Chronicles received no awards, while Ender's Game received both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

I think Martian Chronicles:

(1) Will stand the test of time better. I think it will appeal to new generations for a long time to come.

(2) It holds up to repeat readings better. While Ender's Game is well-written, it depends on a kind of surprise ending. With Martian Chronicles, it is the poetry of the writing, the structure, the great stories, the things it says about the human condition, it's sense of compassion and understanding, it's numerous great stories.

Well, that's what I think, anyway.

I love both of them, but if a choice were to be made, it'd kind of be apples and oranges. (a metaphor i've never really liked but not thought up a better alternative to, yet)

In some ways, though, I think some interesting comparisons and contrasts could be drawn between Orson Scott Card and Ray Bradbury.

What I got out of Ender's Game was a study of power, politics, and the military mentality. It looks critically at individuals as pawns in the hands of a larger system, and used like machines for an ultimate end- this is magnified and given an interesting twist in the fact that it is done through training children to play "games". In the end, as in the second book, Speaker for the Dead, an accident of comparitive anthropology is at fault, and the historical process turns upon Ender, demonizing him, which he, I think, accepts as a neccesary turn of events for the future of the human race.
I'm a little rusty on Ender, and I've only read the first two books in the four-book series, and none of the recent companion pieces- so I'm working from memory here.
One day, I'll finish the whole thing. A friend told me that Xenocide was kind of a drag, but Children of the Mind was fantastic.
For some reason, the Wiggins kids always reminded me a little bit of the Glass family in Salinger's stories, just... in space...

The comparisons I can make between RB and Card are kind of broad, for now, perhaps we can come up with more...
-a focus on human compassion, and how that compassion stands the tests of the approaching future (kind of Krubrickian, too)
-a religious zeal that (as has been lengthily discussed) has a wider and more abstract focus in Bradbury, while Card's is often based squarely in his Mormon beliefs.

on the other hand,
-I think Card's writing style is more directly centered in realism both in characterization and plotting, Bradbury's is more dreamy and flowing, and sometimes (not always, of course- more so in the short stories) his characters are less tangled and complicated because they function more symbolically.
-Card has a fascination with history and mythology of cultures, where Bradbury's is based more on personal recollection and experiences.

Again, there are some huge generalizations here, but let me know what you think...

Dan

You're right -- it probably is apples and oranges; but, simpleton that I am I took the question at face value.

Enjoyed your analysis. Now I need to figure out when to re-read "Ender's Game".

Thanks, Mr. Dark,
I completely agree that Martian Chronicles holds up to repeated readings better. I always enjoy returning to RB's poetic writing, and the unique structure of MC makes both short story readings and a cover-to-cover novel reading possible and enjoyable.
Another book by Card that I thought was fantastic, although it wasn't really science fiction at all, was Lost Boys. I highly recommend it.
And I do eventually need to get back to the Ender series...

thanks for the replysin my opinion they are both good(sure beat harry potter)