Ender's Game

A science fiction written by Orson Scott Card in 1985
Reviewed edition by TOR from 1999
A paperback has 330 pages
ISBN 0-812-58904-1

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The beginning of star travel age. Humankind went through two wars with an unknown alien race and all signs indicate it is about to lose should the aliens come again. The humans have therefore decided to take initiative and launch a strike at the alien home world. The strike force is about to arrive, the only problem is the humans know it will be hopelessly outnumbered.

What the humans intend to do is raise a brilliant military strategist that would command the strike force and lead it to victory against the odds. The army tests all children and sends those that show promise to a special training center, where they learn through playing at being soldiers.

One of the children that the army recruited is Ender Wiggins. In fact, he is the kid that the army believes will lead the strike force. Of course, with the time running out, he is treated none too kindly ...

Review

I hesitated a lot before writing this review. On one hand, I enjoyed the book while reading it, on the other hand, I felt like there is something wrong with it. In the end, I concluded it was the blatant way in which the book sorts people by intelligence and asserts that it is the single factor that determines what people are capable of doing. To put it mildly, this kind of arrogance from perceived superiority really sucks.

Also, while the story is entertaining, it is not exactly inventive in terms of character interaction. Ender wins. People envy him. Ender wins again. People envy him again. Repeat a few more times. While I realize that the feeling of constant struggle was something the author probably wanted to get across, it does tend to get predictable.

Overall, I would say the book is something like a good action movie. It is thrilling, but do not look for depth.

Rated as good by Ceres on 2000-03-18

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