So here's the lowdown. Ender's Game is set in a future Starship Trooperesque world where mankind has barely fended off two large scale attacks from the buggers, a mysterious race of space insect aliens. Preparing for the third and final man-versus-bug showdown, the combined forces of human civilization decided that it would be a good idea to form an elite space commander school, recruit screwed up little kids into the program, then mold them into perfect children soldiers with cruelty and deceit. The novel focuses on one particular kid, Ender Wiggin, who gets a quadruple dose of Full Metal Jacketness because the army recruiters think he is some kind of "chosen one" destine to lead our fleet against the buggers and win.
So who is going to like Enders Game? Well anyone who never got over being a misunderstood grade skipping nerd in high school will identify with Ender. Folks who went through the military may jive with the ends-justify-the-means emotional torture. Highly competitive type-A lawyer doctor people may also enjoy the show.
Who is going to hate Enders' Game? Chicks. Moms. Artists.
I dug the audio book. It was well voiced and the story was compelling, the protagonist earned my empathy, and the length was appropriate. My one criticism involves the ending which seems tacked on and poorly formed. A little wikipedia told me that Orson Scott Card milked the Ender's Game universe for the next 20 years fleshing out all the ins and outs of the story... so I guess that's just my bad....
Still, I can't help wondering "why are sci-fi villians always insects or robots who want to look like insects?"
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5 comments:
Just make sure you stop after "Speaker for the Dead." Everything else is Card milking the bejeezus out of the giant Ender cash cow.
Actually, feel free to stop now. "Speaker for the Dead" isn't any better than the rest of the sequels. (Well, ok, it's marginally better. But it still sucks.)
Dude. This chick/mom LOVES Ender's Game! If you want to continue with the series, the newest book, Ender in Exile, is set chronologically between the last two chapters of Ender's Game.
Ender's Shadow is a parallel book, except it's about Bean's journey at Battle School. I found that, and the rest of the Shadow series, pretty interesting. But again, I'm a chick.
I thought he did a pretty good job talking about the InterTubes considering the book came out in 1985.
It did play out fairly predictably. I liked in anyway. The sequels got boring fast though.
Insects or robots who want to be insects?
Random guess -> The whole insect thing goes to the communal living of the hive. They're a stand-in for commies.
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