Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race’s next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were … Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn’t make the cut–young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender’s skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.
Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender’s two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.
Ender’s Game is the winner of the 1985 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
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One of my all-time favorite stories. Each time I read it I discover something new. This novel is more about connections and relationships and trust than sci-fi, although that is a good setting. This was the first sci-fi book I read, and it changed my mind about the genre.
Fantastic novel, no wonder it’s a classic that has stood the test of time.
I’m usually a fantasy fiction fan and this is more sci fi but it was a good read.
The movie only told a third of the actual story. The book is a mix of simplicity with many layers. Ender is a very straightforward character. If he was an adult I would have found him whiny and weak, but because he is a child, we can accept these shortcomings as part of growing up.
I’ve read this book at least twice and it won’t be my last. Great story-telling and yet easy to read.
My favorite all time book! Great for the imagination!
This book was a rough ride for me, and I’m not sure I can write an adequate review. It has long been a book my husband has really liked, but I’d never read it and not had much desire to read it. And for the first few chapters, I did not care for it at all. As my husband promised, it did pick up after that, though I still struggled with a lot of the content. I did somewhat anticipate the “big reveal,” though to be honest, I thought there’d be another twist coming after that.
I had a really hard time following and caring about all of the politics, both on earth and at Battle School. The chapter and later sections about Peter & Valentine frankly went over my head and bored me, and I didn’t understand the point of them. I know that some of this is delved into a lot more in other books, but it’s really not something that interests me, so it detracted from the book for me. And while the end was mostly good, the last chapter felt like a tack-on, and I could have done without it.
What really turned me off in the beginning, while I was waiting for things to really get going, was Card’s writing style. I do not care for it. It bugged me so much that the narrative and characters would reference things off-hand as if they’d already been explained to us and then expand on those thoughts, and I was left mentally sputtering as I tried to keep up. I think that, in the end, this kind of writing just does not mesh with my way of thinking, my personality, my preference in reading…whatever the case may be, it frustrated me, where most seem to be fine with it.
I’m surprised to say that I was not actually put off by Ender’s tendency to be the best at everything. I mean, that was kind of the point. He was genetically bred to be that way (though to be honest, I barely picked that up from the book itself, but the synopsis does state that). I couldn’t imagine him as a 6-year-old, though, and had to just think pre-teen from the start. My daughter is 9, so I couldn’t get past how ridiculously unrealistic it was, but I’m not saying it didn’t make sense for the story…it just didn’t make sense in my head.
Overall, I don’t fully get why it’s such a classic. I get why people like it, but do not understand the fanatical draw. This was my second Orson Scott Card book (the first being Lost and Found). I didn’t particularly care for the other, either, and it’s interesting to note that they were published decades apart. I kinda think that maybe Card’s writing just isn’t for me.
Read the book. Several substantial changes made to the movie.
I found the book enjoyable and the universe portrayed interesting.
The Buggers tried to destroy the human race, now it is time for the humans to strike back. Ender is only six years old when his training begins. Taken from his family he is placed in battle school, where the teachers will spare him no mercy. He is thrown up against impossible odds and given nothing. Isolated and afraid, Ender must endure whatever is thrown at him and learn to adapt. The teachers will do anything they can to mold Ender into the perfect commander, even if it costs him his sanity. And while Ender endures the harsh realities of battle school in space, his siblings Peter and Valentine begin to unleash their own plans for Earth. Ender isn’t the only genius of the family. Together, Peter with his violent and quick mind and Valentine with her ability to manipulate, plan to bring the Earth under their control.
Orson Scott Card has taken children and made them so believably intelligent, that the reader never questions their motives. I could hardly remember that Ender was only six as he learned to master self-defense and tactical analysis. And let’s not forget Peter and Valentine who begin to play the politics of earth and warp how the citizens of different countries view one another. All so they can gain the upper hand and control the tide of war and reform.
The characters are truly what makes this story shine. I’m not one for heavy politics. Unfortunately, most of Peter and Valentine’s motives didn’t interest me. But that isn’t to say they weren’t well written. Peter and Valentine play well off of one another, and within them, the reader can see why the government allowed their mother and father to take another chance at having Ender as a third child. Together Peter and Valentine are just as influential as Ender but in different ways. Which is the entire reason Ender was promoted to battle school when Peter and Valentine were not.
Ender is the entire reason I finished this book the first and second time. Watching him grow and adapt to the new situations he was put in kept me reading. Ender endures quite a bit of cruelty and readers will watch it break him down and reforge him into a stronger yet damaged new person. He is a survivor and if there is a way to beat the system, he will do his best to find it.
Ender’s Game is a worthwhile science fiction read. It is heavy on politics, but the science fiction elements and characters carry the story. I am intrigued to continue this series to see where it goes.
The incredible book that started a most intense series. READ IT!!
I read this book decades ago. Many thousand of books later, it still remain clear as day in my head. Without a doubt it is one of the best books I have ever read.
Very interesting. Keeps you guessing until the end. I also enjoyed the movie.
I LOVE this book. I don’t think it’s possible to put into words how much I enjoyed it. The writing was fantastic and the characters were so beautifully written. I love the relationship between Ender and his sister Valentine and how she loves him unconditionally. Ender’s memories of her protecting him from Peter when they were younger are truly inspiring, as a sibling myself. I especially love how Ender is afraid of himself. The way he keeps trying to justify his actions and be blind to his own power and strength is so devastating to the reader because you see how much he doesn’t want his actions to be true. For example, when he kills Bonzo, he convinces himself that it was out of self-defense and he would never intentionally hurt someone. We also see this at the beginning of the book. This book had me BALLING. The faucet to my eyes just wouldn’t close. As a person who ONLY reads sci-fi if it is extremely well written, me loving this book is a real surprise. I would 100% recommend this book.
This is a reread/audio listen of this series that I previously have read. It brings so much more to enhance the novel that I read. It also brings the author to us at the end in his own voice and his own ideas about the book itself and his presentation of it. I think Ender’s Saga his is best series of books and listening to him at the end really brought home a lot about the book that, while I felt to a certain extent, brought home so much more. I recommend this be read to in school, maybe listened to as well because of the massive impact of the narrative vs the physical reading of it. I absolutely loved reading this series the first time around and now listening to it makes me love it so much more.
This is a re-read after over a decade, and this book is as good as I remember. The plot is crisp and engaging, but there’s enough introspection to give the characters some depth. However, I think some of Card’s choices diminished the dramatic tension of the story. The ending is a great set-up for a sequel, but I wish there was a way to continue to raise the stakes of this novel a little more.
Enders Game… this is the book that started my writing career. I was in high school. Reading, writing, and of course arithmetic were not my forte. I was destined to quit school join the military and have a career similar to the rest of my family. Until I read Enders Game. This happed to be the fastest, longest, and hardest novel i had read to that point in my life. I was forced to write a book report and speak to the class about the novel. I failed the report because the teacher did not believe I read the book… From that day I needed to know how endears game was written, where the story came from, and how I could emulate the feeling I got when i closed the back cover of the Novel.
If you are a aspiring writer, love reading, or just curious about the craft of writing. Enders game is required reading. As you work though the entire series you will find out Orson Scott Card Is a master at his craft and will take a life time to understand how Enders Game has influenced the literary world.
I listened to the full cast version on audio, and I could hardly put it down. The characterization was just incredible… and while it bothered me that Ender was 6 when the story began and only 11 when it ended, it didn’t bother me as much as it did the first time I read it. He’s described as being a genius at the outset, though I think he’s more than that. Genius just refers to intelligence. Ender has the knowledge of an adult, and the wisdom and maturity of a saint, which doesn’t really have anything to do with intelligence per se. But I knew this going in, and accepted it as the primary area in which I’d have to suspend my disbelief.
The story is set in far futuristic outer space, post-war with an alien race. The fleet is recruiting brilliant young children like Ender to train them young. There’s a cap on reproduction of two children per couple, but because Ender’s older brother and sister are so exceptional, his parents get special dispensation to have a third. They hope he will become the savior the fleet has been waiting for, supposedly to fight against the second coming alien invasion. The story takes place almost entirely in school simulations, and it’s an interesting combination of school kid antics and high level tactical decisions, though with theoretically low risk. It’s what Harry Potter would have been if he were a military prodigy rather than a wizard.
Of course in the end, Ender finds out that the stakes are much higher than even he ever realized. The twist at the end requires a fairly substantial suspension of disbelief as well. But the story and characters were so compelling that I almost didn’t mind.
My rating: ****1/2
Language: none
Violence: none (it’s a military story so there kind of is some but it’s minor)
Sexual content: none
Political content: none
Card’s Ender is the great story of a boy chosen to lead Earth against alien bug like creatures. Ender goes through emotional growth and trauma in preparing for battle.
One of the best that Sci-Fi has to offer. Card’s brilliant work is on high display here in a book that is nothing short of a masterpiece.