Author: Orson Scott Card
Publication Year: 1985 (Tor Publishing)
Genre: Science Fiction
Synopsis: In a future where humans have barely survived two devastating invasions by a mysterious race of aliens referred to as "Buggers," the International Fleet monitors and recruits young children in the search for a perfect commander. Ender Wiggin, the "third" child in a world where population is strictly limited, seems promising enough that he is taken into formal training at the age of six. There he is forced to endure a battery of increasingly-challenging battle simulations and tests, with the hope of humanity resting on his ability to overcome all the odds.
Opinion: In his introduction, Orson Scott Card distinguishes science fiction from fantasy by noting how "Tolkien disciples far too often simply rewrite Tolkien," but in sci-fi the ideas are "fresh" and presented in new and "startling" ways. While this may or may not ring true of the genre, Ender's Game doesn't seem to bring any startlingly new ideas to the table. You have the improbable and essentially good-natured hero who is tempted by his own darkness (in the vein of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader), but is ultimately victorious and redeeming. It's Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces. While some of the concepts of null gravity and battle-room games described in the book are unique, the "training to be the best" build-up is cliche. In this case, it comprises the bulk of the story. Imagine Luke Skywalker or Rocky Balboa training sequences meshed with military squad tactics and you have the basic idea. The only thing missing is montage music. One of the strangest things about this novel is the use of children as the main characters. It's a weird contradiction, because the characters all think and act like brilliant adults, to the extent that the reader often forgets they aren't, but then there are times when Ender or his sister wistfully yearn to live as "normal" children. It seems like the author is using age in an attempt magnify the effects of war and violence, but often the device just comes off as absurd.
Where Card's story succeeds is in his ability to convey Ender's emotion. He does an excellent job of fleshing-out the character and begging the reader's sympathy. He uses Ender as a conduit through which we see human relationships at their most demanding, their most dysfunctional, and their most depraved. Card also aptly brings to life the great human struggle between a desire to remain pacifistic and the necessity of violence for survival. Overall, Ender's Game is an easy read, even for adolescents, but still engaging and fun enough for adults to enjoy. While it offers a few keen observations on human nature, I believe the book is a little overrated.
Score (1-10): 7.7
Favorite Passages:
"We're the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, but we eat the little bastards alive."
"It isn't the world at stake, Ender. Just us. Just humankind. As far as the rest of the biosphere is concerned, we could be wiped out and it would adjust, it would get on with the next step in evolution. But humanity doesn't want to die. As a species, we have evolved to survive. And the way we do it is by straining and straining and, at last, every few generations, giving birth to genius. The one who invents the wheel. And light. And flight. The one who builds a city, a nation, an empire."
"What else should you be? Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would own the earth."
"Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given to you by good people, by people who love you."
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