Book Review: Ender's Game

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In college, I read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Since I was in the mood for a little science fiction and because the movie is coming out this year, I re-read Ender's Game as my book for September.

I read the intro this time, and I learned a little about Mr. Card and his path to writing Ender's Game. He wrote about all the people who wrote him back about the book, including some gifted children who could relate to Ender and military personnel who could relate to the training Ender endures.

Ender's Game is set in the future, after Earth has had two invasions involving buggers (ant-like aliens). The Earth is unified against the buggers, and children are monitored for three (or more) years to see if they would be fit to join the fighting forces against the buggers. Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is a talented young boy (six years old at the start) who is tormented by his intelligent and brutal brother Peter but finds solace in his eloquent and kind sister Valentine. Ender is chosen to go to battle school.

Of course, we know that Ender is not like everyone else, not even like the other gifted children, as he is smarter, quicker, and sometimes stronger than his classmates. He excels at school and is promoted quickly through the ranks. Although he is an excellent commander, winning all his battles in the battle room at school and becoming a leader among all the ranks, he frequently thinks about how he does not want to hurt anyone. He strives for peace and begins to hate the "game" of battle school. However, the administration has other plans for him...

As always, I'll leave you hanging so you can enjoy the book!

I loved reading this a second time. There were so many things I did not pick up on the first time (lots of foreshadowing). Mr. Card was well ahead of his time with the descriptions of future education and training. For one, we have iPads that people use like the desks in battle school (electronic devices that they can play games on, complete homework, and communicate via text). Time only remains until we are conducting military training in space and colonizing other planets...

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