Ender´s Game
Written by Orson Scott Card
www.ink2quill.com

“Ender´s Game” is a scifi novel that has been adapted into a movie, a limited comic book series and talks were in the works for a computer game. It is the first book in a series. It won a Hugo and Nebula Award and was generally loved by critics. It was also nominated for a Locus Award and translated into over 30 languages. Now, I don´t pay much attention to awards because they are generally so political and so many talented people don´t seem to win when they should but this is a well crafted story.

Ender´s Game Goodreads webpage

“Ender´s Game” takes place in the not-too distant future where a humanity is at war and in dire need of talent people to gain an edge. In this vision of the future humanity has spread out into space and encountered a race called the Formics also known as the `buggers´. An intergalactic fleet is established along with a battle school to form new recruits. The top new recruit is a boy by the name of Andrew `Ender´ Wiggin. He is the third child in a society with a two child policy and so is made to feel unwanted as well as having a sadistic older brother Peter. All three children, Ender, Peter and sister Valentine are highly talented people but it is Ender who ends up in battle school. Like so many talented characters in stories he really is not in control of his life and future. (Like the character of Darth Vader in the Star Wars Universe). The military have his life planned out for him, a life which includes the most serious crimes of mass murder, genocide and suffering the assassination of his character and loss of a future within humanity. His performance at the battle school was brilliant and the top brass provided an easy environment for that to be. They protected him from bullying and kept him ignorant of what was really going on.

The character of Ender is almost an archetype. He is the talented hero with something everyone wants, with talents everyone wants to use, but he is also either in a vulnerable position whether that´s from his lower rank in society or being orphaned. I compared Ender to Darth Vader in that respect because they were both talented youths who fell in with a bad crowd, so to speak and had were both exploited.

This is an interesting story of what humanity would do in the event with non-humanoid life outside our planet. It is very believable that fear and greed of resources would take over and we would wage war with the new intelligent life discovered and that´s a shame. If you read on, in the book of Speaker Of The Dead we discover that the Formics are a beautiful species worthy of a rebirth after their genocide but I don´t want to give away spoilers. Some people liked Speaker Of The Dead more than Ender´s Game but you be the judge.

So, check out Ender´s Game. It´s worth the read.

John Ink2Quill

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