Product Description

Ender Wiggin is Battle School's latest recruit. His teachers reckon he could become a great leader. And they need one. A vast alien force is headed for Earth, its mission: the annihilation of all human life. Ender could be our only hope. But first he must survive the most brutal military training program in the galaxy...With its explosive storyline, pump-action excitement and hugely engaging central characters, Ender's Game is 2002's absolute must-read for teenaged boys. Forget schools for wizards, this is where the *real* action is.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6226 in Books
• Published on: 1987-02-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
'Full of surprises. Intense is the word for Orson Scott Card's ENDER'S GAME' - New York Times 'The most hauntingly brilliant writing of the decade' - Interzone From the ATOM teen panel: 'Totally Totally Cool!' - Andrew (14) 'When he takes on the the other armies, I just couldn't stop reading. This is an excellent book!' - Steven (14) 'Full of action and surprises. I really enjoyed this book' - Charlie (15)

Ender is special. He is a Third - a third child in a world where most families are only allowed two, a third child with a special purpose. The world is doomed unless a leader is found who can attack alien armies already on the move across space. Ender, like his brother Peter and sister Valentine, is some kind of genius. Aged only six he is sent to Battle School and begins intensive training. Continually striving against his classmates, obsessively trialling new strategies for the 'games' that make up so much of his education, he learns rapidly. While Ender is being trained for battle, politicians are predicting wars between terrestrial countries if the invaders are repulsed. Peter and Valentine launch an offensive of their own by contributing articles to leading magazines and websites under false names. Gradually their opinions are adopted by leading thinkers and Peter becomes as powerful as he had all along intended. Ender and Valentine, however, need to escape both his and their own success. This is an absorbing novel, particularly in the sections detailing Ender's single-minded quest for improvement. The contrast between the narrow focus on Ender's training and the wider issues brought to life by Peter and Valentine is highly successful, and the climax of the book combines both strands in a tour-de-force of writing. The characterization - except that of the three children - is sketchy in the extreme, and the plot as a whole relies on considerable suspension of disbelief, but somehow neither of these things matters in comparison with the gripping story of Ender's game. (Kirkus UK)

A rather one-dimensional but mostly satisfying child-soldier yarn which substantially extends and embellishes one of Card's better short stories (Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories, 1980). Following a barely-defeated invasion attempt by the insect-like alien "buggers," a desperate Earth command resorts to genetic experimentation in order to produce a tactical genius capable of defeating the buggers in round two. (A counterinvasion has already been launched, but will take years to reach the buggers' home planet.) So likable but determined "Ender" Wiggins, age six, becomes Earth's last hope - when his equally talented elder siblings Peter (too vicious and vindictive) and Valentine (too gentle and sympathetic) prove unsuitable. And, in a dramatic, brutally convincing series of war games and computer-fantasies, Ender is forced to realize his military genius, to rely on nothing and no-one but himself. . . and to disregard all rules in order to win. There are some minor, distracting side issues here: wrangles among Ender's adult trainers; an irrelevant subplot involving Peter's attempt to take over Earth. And there'll be no suspense for those familiar with the short story. Still, the long passages focusing on Ender are nearly always enthralling - the details are handled with flair and assurance - and this is altogether a much more solid, mature, and persuasive effort than Card's previous full-length appearances. (Kirkus Reviews)

INTERZONE
'Every volume of the Ender saga...comprises some of the most hauntingly brilliant writing of the decade'

Synopsis
Ender Wiggin is Battle School's latest recruit. His teachers reckon he could become a great leader. And they need one. A vast alien force is headed for Earth, its mission: the annihilation of all human life. Ender could be our only hope. But first he must survive the most brutal military training program in the galaxy...With its explosive storyline, pump-action excitement and hugely engaging central characters, Ender's Game is 2002's absolute must-read for teenaged boys. Forget schools for wizards, this is where the *real* action is.

Customer Reviews

Harry Potter in Space
Perhaps I'm being a little unfair to this book. After all, Ender's Game was written well before Harry Potter.

In any case, this is the story of a clever little boy named Ender, who gets bullied at home and at school. But then, he receives an invitation to a prestigious school. At that school, he bullied again by some nasty boys. But he makes some friends and wins people's respect by being very good at a game. Eventually, the world is faced with an impending apocalypse, and the boy ends up saving us all.

Cute story. And Orson Scott Card's unpretentiously simple but effective writing style makes the book a very easy and at times even engrossing read. But it is mostly written as a children's book that adults can enjoy as well.

Having said that, where Harry Potter is ultimately a very likeable character, Ender is not. In fact, one could argue that he's a murdering psychopath. The author suggests that Ender is merely a victim of circumstances and essentially does what is right. The morale of the story seems to be that violence is often the best way out of a tricky situations, and one should "shoot first, ask questions later". If you're looking for a good, reasonably clean adventure story for your kids with a strong pro-military flavour that suggest they should be tough and stay clear of wooly liberal notions of peaceful solutions to problems, then this is an excellent purchase.

ender's game
I must have read thousands of books in my life. Ender's Game is the only book that I have read from cover to cover three times, and re-read the end over and over again. I read the sequels, and Ender's Shadow is excellent, but nothing compares to the original Ender's Game. It is an amazing book. Every time you read it you discover something new.

Ender's Game
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is quite simply a science fiction classic. Orson Scott Card's background in humanities rather than science provides an interesting take on the genre and coupled with some strong underlying themes, this leads to a surprisingly accessible novel even for those with no interest in science fiction.

Earth has survived two attacks by an alien insectal race called "Buggers". In order to ensure Earth's survival all the brightest and most gifted children are taken into service of the International Fleet and are trained to be officers and commanders in space, the youngest based at the Battle School - home of a war game where teams of children compete against each trying to disable the other team's "gate", all in zero gravity with laser quest like weapons. The story follows Ender Wiggin - an extraordinary talented 6 year old - from Earth to Battle School and his career in the game and his grooming to become command of Earth's fleets against the Buggers.

The plot is simple but the underlying themes complex, alienation and loneliness, the nature of games and rules; the capabilities of youth and their relationship with adults; compassion and ruthlessness; power and ethics; what it is to be human and of course war. In the sequels and later writing Card often falls for the common mistake of telling us rather than showing us these themes and lecturing at points however in Ender's Game he makes none of these mistakes leading to a surprisingly tight novel. In its brevity we see Card's writing at its best, well paced, well described - Ender's game is an emotional moral ride which never loses its sense of fun and wonder.