Expert Book Reviews

WARNING: This is not the actual book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Do not buy this Review if you are looking for a full copy of this great book.This review offers a detailed look at the positives and negatives of Ender's Game: While Card's use of empathy as a central theme in the novel is interesting, it's overshadowed by the dated feel of the world he created. You'll also read about the novel's most memorable scene, its eye openers, and an alternative outcome. A character reference sheet is included to help you keep track of the many characters. This review of Enders Game also addresses the issue of critical reception, covering what both the readers and the experts like and dislike about the book. You'll also find additional resources if you want to know more about the book or become part of the discussion.Ender's Game is a speculative look at a world where the Cold War never really ended and the entire planet lives in fear of another alien invasion. The military relies on legions of extremely gifted children to plan battles and envision new ways to defeat the enemy. Ender is whisked away to battle school in hopes that he will be the one to save the human race, but what he finds instead is a treacherous world where he can trust no one. He must learn to adapt to the rules of an unspoken, ever-changing game. This comprehensive review covers everything you should know about this beloved children's sci-fi novel, from who would like the book to similar novels you may enjoy.

Expert Book Reviews review of Ender's Game

Review Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card

Andrew "Ender" Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy all human life. The only way to find out is to throw Ender into ever harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when it begins. He will grow up fast.

But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long. Ender's two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. While Peter was too uncontrollably violent, Valentine very nearly lacks the capability for violence altogether. Neither was found suitable for the military's purpose. But they are driven by their jealousy of Ender, and by their inbred drive for power. Peter seeks to control the political process, to become a ruler. Valentine's abilities turn more toward the subtle control of the beliefs of commoner and elite alike, through powerfully convincing essays. Hiding their youth and identities behind the anonymity of the computer networks, these two begin working together to shape the destiny of Earth-an Earth that has no future at all if their brother Ender fails.

Ender's Game

Omar

It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

From New York Times bestselling author Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game is the classic Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction novel of a young boy's recruitment into the midst of an interstellar war. 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, that is, the world survives. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is the winner of the 1985 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Novel. THE ENDER UNIVERSE Ender Quintet series Ender’s Game / Ender in Exile / Speaker for the Dead / Xenocide / Children of the Mind Ender’s Shadow series Ender’s Shadow / Shadow of the Hegemon / Shadow Puppets / Shadow of the Giant / Shadows in Flight Children of the Fleet The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston) Earth Unaware / Earth Afire / Earth Awakens The Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston) The Swarm /The Hive Ender novellas A War of Gifts /First Meetings

really didn't know what the movie was all about... eehhh I never watched it

Emily

Enders Game

Andrew Ross

Kirsten Kim

anjali

[I have a new website where I review awesome books & more! http://unlearner.com]

I wanted to like Ender's Game. I really did. It's a wonder that even after more than halfway into the book, I still clung on to the foolishly optimistic notion that the book would somehow redeem itself. That it would end up justifying the tedious, repetitive, drearily dull chapters I trundled through over the course of several days (which is unusual, since I'm generally a fast reader).

It pains me to say it, as a hardcore fangirl of science fiction, that one of sci-fi's most beloved and highly regarded novels did not do it for me. Actually, that is understating it. While I'm at it, I'll just duck and blurt it out: I loathed Ender's Game. 

Deep breaths. Let that sink in. Let the hate flow through you. Good, strike me down...I am unarmed. 

Okay. Now let's get to it.

Was it because the expectations I had in my mind were unreasonably high and thus were responsible for ruining the book for me? No way. I make no bones about the fact that Ender's Game, regardless of the respect and popularity it commands in sci-fi circles, is an inherently bad novel. 

Why, though, you might ask. Why such vitriol for the book? Here you are, then. 

1) Bad plotting: It didn't take me long to realise that after I was past Ender's arrival at the Battle School, every - literally every chapter thereon until his return to Earth - was more or less the same thing. Battle games, beating the shit out of kids, battle games, switching back and forth to Armies, battle games. It was so repetitive that I was exhausted at the end of every.single.chapter. Page after page after page of six year old, seven year old, eight year old Ender and his buddies zooming about in ships trying to freeze one another's socks off. Wheeee!

2) Lack of characterisation: There are no personalities. There are no motivations. You never learn anything about the characters except that they are the good guys or the bad guys. Ender is brilliant at everything. He NEVER loses. Not once. Bernard, Stilson and Co. are the bad guys. They're evil baddies cause dey r jealuz of ender's brilliance omg!!! That's it. No background, no depth, no internal conflicts. No motivation. Words cannot express how two-dimensional and woefully lacking in personality the characters are.

3) Demosthenes and Locke. What the heck was that all about? I appreciate Card's prescience about the 'Nets' and blogging before it was around, but come on, this is pushing it a bit too far. How, I beg you, how are we supposed to take the idea that a pair of kids end up taking the world by posting in online forums and blogging? 

As if we people of the internet didn't have enough delusions of grandeur already. ;)

4) Now, this really gets my goat:I had to wait for the last 20 pages to get information that was of any worth to the story at all. I'm talking about Mazer's Rackham explaning (view spoiler)[the buggger's communications system (hide spoiler)] to Ender. As for the 'twist ending': I honestly, and I mean, honestly did not find that riveting. It was predictable and, worse, did not justify all that I had to read to make my way to the end. 

 5)Also: It was hard to feel for Ender. I say this as a high-school nerd in my own day, as the reviled and hated and made-fun-of socially awkward kid who wanted to be good at whatever they did. But that doesn't make me any more sympathetic to Ender. Honestly, I fail to see what's so great about Ender anyway. I am so infuriated at Card for this. Apart from Ender's claim to intelligence (which is never completely explained, by the way) there is nothing, NOTHING, that is worth justifying him as the protagonist of one of scifi's supposedly best books ever. Yes, he loves his sister Valentine. Yes, he doesn't want to hurt people. Yes, he goes ahead and does it anyway. Again and again. (view spoiler)[(Ending up murdering two school boys in the process. Uhm, major wtf there.) (hide spoiler)]

I am rarely so caustic about the books I read, but this time I feel I am justified in doing so. I had such hopes for this book. Not impossibly high or anything. At the very least, I had expected to like it, you know? I remember, as I worked my way past chapters 4,5,7,10,14...I expected it to get better. I expected myself to be mistaken at the initial dissatisfaction, then incredulity, then mild annoyance and then a string of sad sighs and resignation to dislike. Alas, I wasn't mistaken. I felt betrayed. I thought this book was right up there with those 'kindred ones', you know? The sort of books you can come back to again and again. Instead, what I got was a bad plotline, progressively unrealistic plot developments, and a cast of flat, lifeless, unpleasant characters to boot. Ender's Game, how I wish I had loved you. Why did you forsake me thus.

Patrick Book

This seems like a “love it or hate it” kind of book. It was okay! It spends way too much time painstakingly mapping out the minutes of individual training/battle sessions, but there are some good character and plot things happening around it. It’s not the kind of sci-fi I gravitate too. I kept wanting some Sirens of Titan to show up.

Paula Plaza Ponte 

I read this book slowly for two reasons: one, life got in the way, often enough I was forced to read a page or two a night, and two, like an observant, language-less bugger, I wanted to watch and really get to know Ender. How this boy genius a reluctant, killing machine becomes and unravels. I loved that he was undefeated, courageous, struggling with his own humanity between kindness and cruelty. I also liked Scott Card's storytelling. Like the lights on the battlefield, he left enough to make you want to walk through the dim door. When more pieces were explained, it didn't feel like spoon-feeding. It felt like revelation of classified information earned by our own trust. All in all, this book pulled me in and let me want to hang out in its lonely world. It often reminded me of this recent movie, "Whiplash", "The Matrix," with a touch of "Interstellar." It was a difficult to put down but the long, slow traverse made sense to me in the end. 

"...And it came down to this: In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them...I destroy them."

siegs

Great story and very creative foresight into future technologies.

Lloyd Humphreys

Aamna

[Audio book]

3.8 stars

Actually looked forward to all commute this past week because I'd listen to this. Starts to decline after 70% though. Would have loved to see more of the Demosthenes/Locke storyline - it's introduced yet hardly built upon. 

Found the author's note at the end very engaging as he talks about the origins of the story.

Pepper

Ender's Game Movie Tie-In 18-Copy Fd

Although this book is considered a classic, I found it dull and uninspired. It might as well be called Ender’s Complaining.

Frederik De Bosschere

Aaron J Mitchell

While I enjoyed the space training and battle elements of Enders Game, the B plot about Ender's brother and sister ushering in a new age back on earth with fake message board flame wars seems more than a little goofy in a post Facebook age.

The book is overhyped in a lot of circles whereas the movie adaptation is slammed by fans of the book. But to me the movie captured most of the best of the book while leaving out the boring bits.

Jaden Nelson

yes, yes, yes. I have realized that I am a sucker for a plot twist. My thoughts on this book are kind of jumbled, so I'll try to keep this as collected as I can. The book was an extreme page turner and kept me up reading until I forced myself to stop. The plot was very well thought out, I liked how dynamic Ender was, and I LOVED the plot twist (I think I actually audibly gasped). I can't decide between 4 and 5 stars because the book was great, but I still felt like it didn't quite do it for me all the way. I was looking for a fun read and this book delivered. It didn't seem too childish or adult-like, it had a good balance. I am going onto  Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga, #2), and I am excited to see where the series goes. ((Also, if you have only seen the movie and not read the book, you need to read the book because the movie is a flop compared to it))

Emma Daniels

This book is my absolute favorite book I have ever read. I suggest this book to ever friend that has asked for a book suggestion, and always will!

Toby Baratta

This book would be even better if the author wasn't a terrible person.

Andrew John Kinney

Very entertaining, but it's basically YA stuff, and frankly not very believable YA. But it kept me reading.

Coleman McCormick

I've had this one on my reading list for years, and enjoyed finally getting to read it. Found it a little slow to get engaged with, but loved how it played out.

Shape Mismatch

After staying away from Science Fiction for quite some time, I started out with this book, on a whim, and on a recommendation. Easy for the eyes, imaginative but digestive, it's a tale you'd be flipping through before you know you hit the end. It never hits you, unless you turn over to find no more page. 

Immersed in it, I often felt like the book was meant for a different age group than the one I've grown to belong in. However, that's not entirely true. This inspiring tale of a kid's struggle has subplots, some minute nodes which really get you thinking (maybe it's just me). [SPOILER] The concept is heavily borrowed, and a watered down version of something that Asimov conceptualized in his Foundation Series, which is a good food for thought, and a good conversation topic for numerous conversations. 

At the same time, the book doesn't shy away from being childish. Many characters are linear, although their thoughtprocesses are beautifully elaborated. Sometimes it's really like being inside the head of a child. That is not always a bad thing, but might invoke certain distastes in the ones who have read other serious sci-fi novels

I think Ender’s Game is a really sad book. He never wanted to be a killer and the adults in his life manipulated him so that he was. Ender was constantly isolated and made miserable for the betterment of society. 

Liz Hunsaker

Gavin

Bit with Demosthenes and Locke was memorable (two children pulling the strings of the world media, less implausible than the aliens in this).

Lord Aragorn

Amazing story! Really enjoyed the descriptions of the relationship between the three siblings, as well as Ender's learning process.

Charlotte Dann

There were elements of this that made me want to devour it, but also many unassailable flaws. Chiefly, I just don't buy the premise. A 6 year old is the only hope to save the world? Sure. OK.
I'm going to make a video on this book when I find the time.

Ben Silverman 

An absolute classic that I'm so glad I took the time to read.

Aviv Leo Zippin

Once you're done with it you'll surly know why it's so high-regarded. Nothing shorter than a sci-fi masterpiece.

Loved this book. Such a different genre of book compare to what I usually read which makes a nice change. Would recommend this book to everyone.

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