Ender’s Game (Ender's Saga, #1) in The Alternative Worlds

Dec 13, 2010 Danielle The Book Huntress rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: middle-grade-juvenile, tortured-hero, space-another-planet, owned-copy, nerd-prof-scientist-genius-geek, futuristic, action-adventure-aficionados-2012-c, yearly-reading-challenge, dangerous-hero-2012-general-reading, science-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Do the ends justify the means?

What if the only way to save your planet from certain annihilation is to ruthlessly manipulate a young child into becoming a solder who is skilled enough to destroy billions of your enemy, to make him into a killer?

With Ender's Game, the reader gets to ponder this question. I had many thoughts as I read this story. I didn't always understand what was going on. Like Ender, I questioned where the game ended and reality began. Children in the environment of this book d Do the ends justify the means?

What if the only way to save your planet from certain annihilation is to ruthlessly manipulate a young child into becoming a solder who is skilled enough to destroy billions of your enemy, to make him into a killer?

With Ender's Game, the reader gets to ponder this question. I had many thoughts as I read this story. I didn't always understand what was going on. Like Ender, I questioned where the game ended and reality began. Children in the environment of this book don't get to be kids for long at all, especially when they are genius children. Instead, they become soldiers, training day in and day out to be the best, to win, to conquer their enemies. All for the purpose of defeating the alien race that Earth views as a deadly enemy (called Buggers) in the coming war. I questioned how a six-year-old kid could even grasp this. Even a genius child. As I read, I questioned the ruthlessness of adults who would put a child through these experiences. It takes a certain personality, a particular mindset to able to justify one's actions. It's hard not to judge, but then, I'm not in the same situation. And I was grateful for that.

I just wanted Ender to have some peace and be able to just be a child. I cheered for him to find his way past the many mazes he was manipulated through. I didn't ever lose faith in him, because he had proven himself worthy of my faith. Even though I wondered what was the whole point of everything, I didn't stop believing in Ender. I was glad that Ender managed to find that light that kept him moving forward. Sometimes it was in the form of his beloved sister, Valentine, and other times, it was his fellow students, and sometimes it was the determination not to let them see him sweat. Whatever it was, this kid didn't break. I liked that about the book.

Some things didn't sit well with me as I read. I couldn't always visualize the game setup at Battle School as clearly as I would have liked. Instead of letting this throw me out of the read, I just managed to fill in the blanks around my lack of understanding and keep reading. Maybe Card meant it that way, but it was interesting how warfare became an experience that felt more like playing a video game than a face to face meeting of enemies. I wondered where that was going, but I soon found out, and I was like, "Are you serious?" I don't care much for mind games and boy was there some serious mind-screwing going on in this book. Perhaps his point was that as technology advances, warfare becomes more and more dehumanized, and it takes away the immediacy of the moral questions of taking a life, and using soldiers like pawns on a board to do so. As above expressed, the ruthless treatment of children and its effects hit me hard. They did not make for easy reading for me. On one level, I understand that a lot of psychology goes into training soldiers, and I know that some of it is necessary. I just wonder where the line gets drawn. The aspects of Peter and Valentine's political experiment left me a bit cold. I wasn't sure what Card was trying to get across here. Is the political arena just a big elaborate game in and of itself, a game that has the potential to have very disastrous and wide-reaching effects? Or was he trying to say that age is just a number? Kids aren't really kids, depending on the society and the situation that the child inhabits. Still not sure about either of those conclusions I drew. As close as I can get, anyway. Lastly, the ending got a bit strange. While I appreciated the aspects about Ender gaining an appreciation for the mind (the human-like aspects) of the Bugger civilizations, things got a bit weird and abstract when Ender's empathy with the Buggers became a philosophy that turned into a religion. It felt disconnected from the story to me, and added to a certain lack of satisfaction I felt overall. I appreciate the fact that he examined how war, differing philosophies, external differences, what have you, can separate entities in a way that if we strip down all the differences, there is a lot more alike than we think.

Final Thoughts:

Ender's Game is a well-written work of science fiction that has a lot to say about subjects that can make for hairy discussion. Subjects that I tend to avoid discussing with a ten-foot pole. War is as old as mankind. Literature is a good sounding board to explore those questions of war and humanity. Overall, I think that this novel does a good job of staying in the story and not just acting as a soundboard for the author's opinion. I am sure that others may disagree. For myself, I didn't necessarily feel that it was a preachy work. If it was, I think both sides of the questions were adequately presented in such a manner as for me to feel that this was a book with a story that had some themes that could get a reader thinking. Not mere propaganda for espousing one person's beliefs.

I liked this book a lot, but I felt the ending took it down from a five star rating for me. Also, my sense of disconnection at not quite getting some of the gaming aspects. I'm sure that others better versed in gaming or military strategy, or better read in science fiction might have visualized and understood those elements better than this reader. For what it was, this was a good book, and I can say that I gained a lot from reading it. I still have some philosophical questions running through my head now, and I feel that I have yet to make up my mind about those things, as there are always two sides to every story. So for me, that's a good experience, getting a good story and something to think about in the end. ...more

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Feb 28, 2010 Kara Babcock rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-fiction, hugo-winner, 2010-read, favourites, nebula-winner, own, 2010-best10

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Books can be like old friends you haven't seen in a while. Your friendship has lapsed, and there's always the fear that when you do resume contact, things will be different and you'll have changed too much to remain friends. Sometimes that's true, and the two of you go your separate ways. I've mostly found, however, that it feels like no time has passed at all. As with friends, books like that feel comfortable the moment you begin turning pages. Reading them just feels right. Emotions begin to w ...more

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Jan 19, 2011 Kevin Xu rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

this is the human condition

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Jun 06, 2010 Misha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own, favorites, science-fiction, fiction, children-young-adult

Numerous folks told me it's a "must read". Now that it's one of my favourites, I'm doing the same.

In what is one of Orson Scott Card’s most acclaimed novels, space and technology are used to explore society and possibilities. The idea that at the age of 6 children are trained for war is scary enough, but add in that they are bred for that is more so. Present are leadership and respect, how they can be earned or lost, and the concept of nice versus good. Also brought to question is isolation to b ...more

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May 03, 2011 Daniel Roy rated it really liked it

Shelves: sf

Ender's Game, for some obscure reason, is one of those SF classics that I had somehow managed to avoid so far in my life. Maybe its superficial resemblance to The Last Starfighter made me perceive it as a dated SF classic; and now that I've read it, I realize my impressions couldn't have been more wrong. As a matter of fact, as I read the story of Ender Wiggins for the first time, I felt privileged to be reading what was obviously a pillar of SF literature.

Ender Wiggins is a 6 year-old boy who h Ender's Game, for some obscure reason, is one of those SF classics that I had somehow managed to avoid so far in my life. Maybe its superficial resemblance to The Last Starfighter made me perceive it as a dated SF classic; and now that I've read it, I realize my impressions couldn't have been more wrong. As a matter of fact, as I read the story of Ender Wiggins for the first time, I felt privileged to be reading what was obviously a pillar of SF literature.

Ender Wiggins is a 6 year-old boy who has a towering destiny ahead of him: he is a boy genius who must be put through the hardships of Battle School in the hopes that he can turn into the next Alexander, and defeat an alien race known as the Buggers. Ender's greatest strength is also the weakness that must be weaned out of him: he is a caring, empathic boy who doesn't take to murder lightly. But kill he must if he is to save all of Humanity.

Although the protagonist of Ender's Game is a child, there is nothing childish about what he lives through. Ender must contend not only with older boys plotting against him, and a hostile school management bent on breeding a military commander out of him; he must also deal with his own conscience as he becomes the killer he must be to save his kind. The moral dillemmas faced by Ender are definitely adult: they speak of duty and the necessities of survival, and the sacrifices we make as a species to defend our right to exist.

Ender and his fellow boy-soldiers are fascinating characters, and they sometimes reach that most difficult of balance, by being at once child-like and supernaturally intelligent. There is a level of intelligence in some exchanges (particularly those involving Ender's sister Valentine) that matches those in Frank Herbert's Dune in terms of multilayered complexity. On the whole, however, the children of Ender's Game behave more like ruthless military officers, and less like children, than I would have expected. The tale of Peter and Valentine, for instance, stretched my belief in these child geniuses.

Overall, Ender's Game is a satisfying, gripping SF tale, and one that obviously influenced the genre in a major way. It is amazing in its relentlessness, and one can't help but feel pity and sympathy for Ender as he is put through the trials that will shape him into a military commander for the ages. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it, and I look forward to Speaker for the Dead, Ender's Game's sequel, and the spinoff, Ender's Shadow. ...more

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May 30, 2010 Taueret rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya, sci-fi, audiobook

If I didn't know this was a classic, I would probably only give this 3 stars. I think that's mainly because I found out Card is a Mormon. oh well. ...more

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