Orson Scott Card
Ender's Game (1991)
Author: Orson Scott Card
Genre: Science Fiction (Storyteller Focus)
Plot Summary:
After a race of aliens humans named "buggers" attacked Earth twice, the world government instituted a breeding program to genetically engineer the perfect military commander. Children who are promising candidates wear monitors that allow their actions to be tracked and analyzed, and Ender Wiggins is one of these children. Ender's intelligence sets him apart from normal children and even from his own siblings, who were also monitored as young children. When Ender is six, they remove his monitor, and he believes that he washed out of the program, just as his two siblings did before him. However, in truth, Ender has been chosen for special military training. In Battle School, Ender and other children like him are put through military training. They participate in "games" designed to teach them military strategy. However, even at Battle School, Ender is an outsider, envied and bullied because of his intelligence. Ender graduates from his launch group early, and joins one of the training armies. Although he has no experience, Ender learns quickly how to command others in battle. He is sent to Command School when he is ten, six years before most children graduate from Battle School. At Command School, Ender learns from Mazer Rackham, veteran and hero of the second bugger war. From Mazer, Ender learns more about what really happened during the second war and how to command a fleet. He and Mazer engage in computer simulated training. SPOILER: What Ender doesn't realize is that the computer simulations at Command School are not really simulations at all. Ender is not commanding a simulated army but a real army, one that has been sent ahead to the Bugger home world. Not realizing that his actions are real, he anihilates the enemy fleet and destroys the Bugger home world. Essentially, he is tricked into committing xenocide. Afterwards, his sister, Valentine, convinces Ender that to return to Earth would be to put himself into the hands of others who would use him for power. Instead, he and Valentine journey with a group of colonists to one of the now-empty bugger worlds. There, Ender comes to realize that the bugger queens, who communicated via telepathy, knew that Ender was being trained to destroy them. They left a queen's egg behind, in the hopes that Ender would understand that the bugger wars were a result of miscommunication and that he would allow the queen egg to hatch.
Geographical Setting: There are several places that the events take place, they begin on earth, then move to the battle school which is orbiting earth in space. The last part of the book takes place on an asteroid called Eros that is three months worth of space travel from earth. The final chapters take place on a new world that is being colonized.
Time Period: The future
Series: First in the Ender series
Appeal Characteristics:
The story is fast-paced, with a plot that is revealed quickly. There are multiple plotlines, and characters are active and proactive participants in events. Ender and his siblings, in particular, are very proactive characters, moving to influence the world around them. The pacing is established from the very beginning by dropping the reader into Ender's life, with no "world-building" or explanations. The focus is mostly on the main character, although his siblings take part in an important secondary storyline, as do mysterious "voices" (military commanders) who remain mostly unidentified and offer insight into Ender's military training. The secondary characters are well developed and add realism and twists to the plot. The third person narration works well to emphasize Ender's feelings of isolation and "other-ness" but the reader still identifies with Ender. Although the characters are rich, the events in the story offer an action-filled storyline. The book balances psychological writing and action. Ender's part of the story gives us both adventures and Ender's own inner world, which is introspective and mistrustful of others' intentions. The ending, especially, gives the book a psychological tone, as Ender must now, somehow, deal with the fact that even though Ender didn't trust them, the adults still managed to deceive and manipulate him into becoming a murderer. The frame gives the story an austere, somewhat dark feel. The reader is given enough detail to piece together Earth's history and "the way things are" without bogging them down with too much description. Battle School portrays a very military, sparse feel, while Ender's reactions to Eros convey discomfort and wrongness to the reader. This novel won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1986.
Read-alikes: Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead, which is the next book in the Ender series, is another good next read (and another Hugo winner). In Ender's Shadow, Card tells the Ender story from a different character's point of view (that of his friend Bean). Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers about a military recruit fighting against mankind's most frightening enemy. This boot camp/military element ties in nicely with Card's novel. Readers may enjoy Joe Haldeman’s Forever War, the first of a series of three, which has similar themes and characteristics to Ender's Game. The main character is one of the first to enter a war against alien attackers that came about as a result of misunderstandings. The reviews indicate that this novel has a philosophical feel combined with a lot of fast-paced action similar to that of Ender's Game. Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion has an introspective main character who, much like Ender, is searching for his own identity. Matt, the main character, is persecuted by others because he is a clone and thus feels like an outsider. The story is fast paced and full of adventure, as Matt struggles to survive. The book has a dark, depressing feel, but as with Ender's Game, the ending gives a sense of hope for the future. Starfish, by Peter Watts, is the first in the Rifters series. It is the story of a crew of bio-engineered people who are sent to work under the ocean to exploit geothermal power. The dark tone and sense of isolation is similar to the feel of Ender's Game, and the characters are probably a bit darker than those in Ender's Game, emphasizing the psychological feel of the writing. Eric Nylund’s Halo: The Fall of Reach is the prequel to the popular Xbox video game, Halo. It is the story of a group of specially trained, bioengineered soldiers who are trying to defend the last stronghold before Earth (a planet called Reach) to prevent an alien species called the Covenant from discovering Earth's location. It has a plotline, dark feel and futuristic setting similar to Ender's Game. The book is less psychological than Ender's Game, but has a lot of action and a fast pace. Larry Niven's Ringworld is the story of a group of adventurers who crash land on an alien-built world in the shape of a ring that orbits around a small star and explore the ring. Reviews indicate the book has imaginative, engaging characters and a plotline that starts out somewhat slowly but picks up its pace and action toward the middle and end of the book. Nancy Kress's Beggars Trilogy, the first being Beggars in Spain, is not about the military, but it does have some of the same appeal elements as Ender's Game, there is genetic engineering and it deals with seeking perfectionism in children. The Honor Harrington series (the first book is On Basilisk Station) by David Weber features a storytelling style and involves the military in space. Robert Jordon's Wheel of Time series is a good suggestion if the reader expresses an interest in young heroes helping to save the world in a fantasy setting. Reader's who enjoyed Orson Scott Card's suspense and young hero may enjoy Dan Simmon's horrific Summer of Night, about a group of boys who battle a deadly entity without the help of adults. If you enjoyed the philosophical treatment of survival vs mass extinction, you may like Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, a critically acclaimed novel about the colonization of Mars, but which may not appeal to readers who like to follow just one character throughout a whole books. Readers who liked the dark psychology and Ender's sense of loneliness may also like Stephen L. Burns' Flesh and Silver, about a doctor who heals psychically, but is outcast. Dave Wolverton's On My Way to Paradise also contains a militaristic theme, and deals with one's characters moral struggle regarding how far to take revenge. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke is fast-paced, and deals with the exploration of a alien ship. There are parallels between Clarke and Card's books in that they both examine situations that dwell on the quandary in which humankind struggles to understand an alien race. For readers who enjoy young protagonists and a violent, dark backdrop,try Mortal Engines, the first book in the Hungry City Chronicles. The storyline is original with cities that not only can move but they consume smaller cities to fuel their movement. The book has a dark tone dealing with London's mayor who has evil plans of domination with atomic weapons while and 15 year old Tom must try to stop it. In Dune, the first book in the Dune series, another young protagonist, Paul, who lives on the desert planet Arrakis, avenges a traitor who plots against his noble family, the House of Atreides. The tone is dark and the pace is slower with time taken to carefully create Dune's desert world, but Giant worms, addictive spice mined from the sands, and the mysterious Muad'Dib, Paul's alterego, make this an interesting read.
Red Flags: There is violence, cruelty to children, and some language.
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