Review Page: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
| Title: |
Ender's Game |
| Author: |
Orson Scott Card |
| Genre: |
Science Fiction |
| Publisher: |
Orbit |
| Date of Publication: |
19 February, 1987 |
| ISBN: |
185723720X |
No. of Reviews: 1
Av. Rating: 9/10
Buy this book from the Amazon website.
06.10.2000 - Shahrazade - 9/10
List of Reviews | Bio
This book is one of my all time favourites. I'm fairly fond of Orson Scott Card as a writer anyway but this was the first book of his I read and, in my opinion, is still his best.
Of all the science-fiction I've read I think Ender's Game has the most interesting characters and the most determined plot. Card knows where he's going with this book and the pacing is pretty much perfect. The science is peripheral to the matter of the book but has no obvious flaws and the null-gravity combat game produces excellent set pieces on spatial motion. There's also a generous dollop of philosophy and sociology (ideas which are expanded in the following three books) and a well though out background. I'm rating it as 9/10 - not to be missed. And even that took some thought since I was tempted to give it the full ten marks.
The plot in brief is this: The eponymous protagonist, a six-year-old boy named Ender (short for Andrew) Wiggan, is a Third. Despite strict population control laws the Hegemony (a futuristic America) his parents have been licensed to have a third child in the hopes that their superior genetic stock (proved by the high intelligence of their first two children) will produce a military genius: an Alexander who can win a war for Earth. The war is against an alien species known as the Buggers. These are really excellent aliens and, although their nature is not substantially explored until later novels, the human attitude to them is dramatically evoked.
In the third chapter of the novel Ender is scooped up by Colonel Graff of the International Fleet and taken to 'Battle School': a vividly realised training base for the young children who will one day fight the next battle in the Bugger War. The various governments of the Earth have allied to combat these Buggers and train the commanders who will fight this war because of the appalling devastating wreaked by two invasions of this voracious colonising race.
The main matter of the book takes place in the Battle School as the novel follows Ender's career from age six to twelve. His training, superintended by Graff (whose point of view plays an important role in the book), is comprehensively explored and the narrative is fast-paced and gripping. The final conclusion is excellent and the build up exciting.
If this novel has a flaw it is that in the later stages of the book, after Ender has moved on to another instruction base, the training sequences are somewhat skimped. After the powerful images of the Battle School with its seductively credible war games Card finds it difficult to produce a new location and game of equal calibre. But at least he realises this and there isn't really time to become bored of the next phase of training what with the introduction of an important new character and the book commencing its peroration.
I would recommend this book not only to any science-fiction enthusiasts but also to anyone looking for an accomplished piece of writing with an intrinsic merit that transcends genre. Buy it today - you won't regret it. What's more, if you finish it longing for more, there are several sequels: Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and Children of the Mind.