Ender's Game

 

In honor of the movie coming out a while ago, I wanted to tell people how awesome Ender's Game is. I loved the book because it was easy to relate to characters or situations in the story (To feel for them I mean, obviously I haven't been in many zero gravity battles recently). Orson Scott Card also includes some moral dilemmas that make you think. The book is part of a series (Ender's Shadow, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide). I mainly wanted to write to the people who have yet to see the movie. If you haven't read the book yet, don't watch the movie... yet. I say this because it is really tempting to go take in a story in 2 hours instead of the time it takes to read a novel, but this book has layers and parts that really deserve closer inspection. Here is what Amazon.com says about it: 

"In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers, Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister. 

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If the world survives, that is."

Clearly, It's an interesting story, but it can be more than that if you read the book, and THEN go see the movie instead of skipping the novel.  

Read the beginning of Ender's Game on Google books.

~Reviewed by Kash F., SHS student