Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Science Fiction, 324 pages
1991, Tor
(Aside: There are many different publishers and dates for this book. The original was published in 1985.)
Review by Ashlee Chism
Ender, a gifted six-year-old (you read it correctly), is taken to the world's foremost military school, Battle School, where the training takes the form of games. After the games (and not-games), he goes to Command School to take even more training. There he is told that he is being trained to be the lead commander of Earth's coming invasion of their enemy's holdings. From there, I can't divulge what happens, or else I would give the ending away, and I definitely do not want to do that.
Card is a prolific and gifted writer. I freely admit that Ender's Game is one of the first books that truly stunned me in high school, and it stunned me within the first page. In one of the first scenes, Ender goes to a doctor for a procedure, and the nurse tells him that it wouldn't hurt. I laughed to myself, because I thought, "Hey, this guy knows what adults say to kids. It's such a lie."
Then I read the next two sentences: "Ender nodded. It was a lie, of course, that it wouldn't hurt a bit," (p. 2; bolding mine). The fact that Card's protagonist actually acknowledged that truth floored me, and I eagerly kept reading.
The premise of using games to train gifted children for war is one that I had never encountered before reading this book. Card deftly explores the psychological, emotional, and mental ramifications that such a training would have on a growing young person. There is a good bit of profanity and violence in the book, once the fact that the book is talking about six to twelve-year-olds is considered. However, it is also a book about military geniuses, and, to my understanding, profanity and violence are realities in the military and in war.
Ender's Game is a book that is on my list of "flashlight books," or books that I had to keep reading even past my normal bedtime (back when I had one). I wholeheartedly recommend buying and reading this book.
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Ashlee Chism is a voracious reader and aspiring author of fantasy and science fiction. She is currently working on several short stories and her university homework.
Love this review, Ashlee! Card is one of my favorite authors, but I haven't read Ender's Game. It's on my Yet-2-B-Read list.
ReplyDeleteOoh! It sounds super good! I'll recommend THE HUNGER GAMES right back at ya!
ReplyDeleteThe whole Ender's Series (the ones about Ender and the ones about Bean) are really good. There's only one I haven't read yet. Also, by Card: Empire, Enchanted, Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (although I know you don't like time travel, Lexi, it's a good premise), Treason...oh, lots. Definitely a fav author of mine.
ReplyDeleteThe Hunger Games. Who's that by?
Thanks, Ash!
ReplyDeleteI agree. That Card kid is going to be a good writer someday.
He pretty much called Halo and SOCOM at a time when Mario ruled the video game realm.
There are actually soldiers that sit behind screens and run Predators and other surveillance and assault vehicles.
Click. Death.
Good catch, Joe - I gave this book to my nephew and had to tell him how the whole desktops-as-computers, and sending each other messages and forums on the net, were all just distant possibilities back in '85.
ReplyDeleteFrom a writing standpoint, the second chapter, with his brother in their bedroom, is totally visceral, and yet he doesn't describe the rooms at all. In fact, he doesn't describe much of anything, and yet it's there.
Also check out the first two pages - the opening of "The Matrix" copied it almost exactly in having these voices talking about The One.
The sequel was far too different for my tastes, and the alternate-version Ender's Shadow didn't do it for me, either, but this one is a classic.