Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

I have known about Ender’s Game from a long time, as long as I can remember. I tried reading it in high school. I got it from the library; unfortunately, I didn’t get the first (because the library didn’t have it) but some other book in the series. I thought it didn’t matter, and in a lot of series it doesn’t, but in this one it does and I gave up on Ender’s Game too soon. I was too confused. I picked it up again and finished it overnight, it was so good. I was up until the wee hours of the morning and intensely tired when I woke up, but it was worth it.

So the world . . . that is as interesting as the main character, Andrew Wiggin, Ender for short. Ender is a product of his world; it was invaded twice by aliens and now there are population controls in place everywhere. One of the rules is that only the first two children get a free education. Ender is a third and gets a special dispensation to go to school. He and his two siblings are geniuses, fairly equal in brains, but vastly different in temperament. The military first add its eye on his older brother, but he was too mean to make a good commander; his older sister was too mild; Ender was perfect. All three of them were birthed with the express purpose of getting a genius military commander.

The military inserts a chip of sorts into children to determine if they would make good soldiers. At the age of 6, Ender’s chip was taken out. But then on his way out of school, he was attacked by bullies and ended up killing the main one. Not that he knew that; he didn’t and he cried after because he had to hurt the bully. He needed a decisive victory to keep from attacking him day after day, but he didn’t like it. So later a military officer arrives and asks why; Ender tells him and they decided he is good candidate for battleschool because of his reasons.

There was a lot of that kind of manipulation and deception in this story. Not just on the part of the teachers in an effort to turn Ender into a brilliant commander, but in the part of his siblings. They were just as smart he was; his brother (with this sister’s help) embarked on a quest for world domination. He succeeded.

They (Ender’s teachers) lied to him and he destroyed the alien’s homeworld for them. He wouldn’t have done it if they had told him the truth; his life so far had cost too much. And he didn’t actually like killing. In the end, he and groups of other extra children colonized and lived in the alien’s world. There he discovered that the aliens had not intended to attack; they were insect like creatures and could not conceive of another sentient race without constant hive-like communication.

edit: It seems I forget to give this a grade.

Grade: B+

Ender's Game is one of those books that is touted as a science fiction classic. It did blow me away (I spent all night reading it!) but I can't see myself reading the whole thing over again so I am thinking B+ is probably a good grade to give it.