Orbit Ender's Game: Book 1 of the Ender Saga

Ender's game is, in some ways, quite a pleasure to read. The writing is technically competent: things, events, people and their interactions are all well visualised. The plot flows relatively well, with changes in perspective being well managed and clear. This is largely the reason the book deserves the second star. Unfortunately, the actual material of the book - the adventures of the child genius Ender and his child genius siblings, is fairly poor, and I can only conclude that the book won it's Hugo and Nebula awards more due to the paucity of competition than any technical brilliance.The characterisation of the book manages to be both simplistic, but at the same time deeply inconsistent. The children - and bear in mind this book deals largely with prepubescent-to-pubescent children - tend to near-robotic rationality, interspersed seemingly at random with sporadic outbreaks of normal childlike behaviour.People are either monstrous, such as Peter, or Ender's various bullies, or they are saintly, like the much-persecuted Ender and his sister. The only middle ground is occupied by Ender's parents, who swiftly depart the scene in a display of too-convenient moral cowardice, and Ender's tutors, who's abuse and neglect of Ender is supposed to transform him into some sort of super-leader by isolating him from his peers and forcing him to develop his talents.In reality, Ender is being saved by an extremely strong dose of author fiat, as actions which would actually stunt a child's intellectual development (stress hormones, social isolation and fatigue) somehow magically cause genius to sprout.Frequent mention is made of Alexander, though the author's historical illiteracy is such that he does not appear to have actually read Arrian, appearing to not realise that Alexander was raised in an environment of immense wealth and privilege, amongst a cadre of young men he could trust deeply, while being closely tutored by the finest mind of his age, as opposed to being largely isolated from those he was supposed to lead, allowed no personal possessions, subject to harassment and violence and repeatedly subject to stress and fatigue.The one similarity with Alexander shared by Ender is the weakness of his opponents: Ender seemingly being the only boy amongst his peers capable of adapting to zero-gravity fighting and optimising one's positioning around the mechanics of the game they play. It is perhaps unfair to criticise Scott Card on this, as he lived in an era before mass online gaming, and likely did not know exactly how efficient large groups of people given a competitive incentive are at developing novel ways of doing so.Humanity's adversaries are inanely named "The buggers", a reference to their insectoid origins. This absurd title quite neatly destroys any menace or gravitas they might hold over the reader. The reasons for the conflict are expropriated from Joe Haldeman's Forever War: the hive mind species's inability to communicate with an individual, while the insectoid nature and the hive mind are taken from Heinlein's Starship Troopers (both dramatically superior books)The books utterly break down in the last stage, as Ender begins to properly prepare for fighting the enemy proper. Scott Card's complete lack of knowledge of either the theory of zero-g combat nor the basics of air warfare is laid painfully bare for all to see. The reader winds up being told of Ender's genius, not shown it(Spoiler Alert)The final setpiece degenerates into a farce, as Ender's genius for reading people's dishonesty suddenly fails him at the most convenient and implausible moment, and earth's greatest tactician defeats the buggers with a massed frontal assault with obsolete ships, breaking the enemy line by sheer force of deus ex machina to deliver their payload of doomsday weapons onto the enemy's homeworld, wiping out the bugger queen's who have been conveniently concentrated in one place, despite their knowing that humanity has literal planet-killing weapons on their warships.The elongated epilogue and setup for the second novel is actually far more readable, and partly contribute to the book's second star.

I watched the film when it came out a few years ago and thought it was ok with a good concept, despite the critica. Since getting back into reading in 2021 I thought I'd give the book a shot.Unfortunately for me, the writing style didn't appeal to me. Unlike Frank Herberts Dune, which stands up to the test of time, I don't think the same about Ender's Game (the more-than-once inclusion of the boys being naked was just an awkward read).What should be described as character building I personally ended up finding being a repetitive construct of Ender's personality.A few times, what should have been big events where he overcomes his personality barriers, are done and dusted in a couple of sentences (eg winning his first training battle) and instead of celebrating the minor victories, things just move on as if it wasn't a big deal.The subplot of his siblings seemed a strange occurrence and a distraction which didn't really add anything to the book. Not only was it unbelievable, it didn't really come to anything. It's like it was added because a subplot is just something the author felt like they had to include because that's what writing courses teach you. There is an argument it was important in terms of Ender's relationship with the two siblings, but if this had been better formed at the beginning of the book, the subplot didn't need to happen in the background. I guess this may be explored in book two, but it will be a while until I get around the reading it based on this book.Overall the book was okay, but not one of favourites.

The book is well written,, easy to read and nicely paced. It's a military novel, slightly dark. Deals a lot with manipulation, abuse and isolation as Ender tries to find a way to fit into the new reality. The first half gets boring at times. It's very repetitive as Ender goes through his training.The character of Ender is a bit overpowered. He's very strong for his size and super intelligent. He hardly ever fails and he makes enemies because he's so perfect. There is however a lot of depth in his character and he is clearly in pain. The novel lacks any good tension and the climax is a bit disappointing. For a book with so many accolades it fails to meet my expectation.

I enjoyed Ender's Game a lot - it was nicely plotted, beautifully paced, and had a great sense of tension until the last events at Battle School kinda robbed it of what it had so painstakingly built earlier. In certain respects, it suffers from having been read so late in my life - elements of it that might have been shocking and original if I had read it earlier seem somewhat trite. It doesn't have the sweeping, deep ideas of House of Suns or any of the Culture novels,which makes it very much dependent on the novelty of the plot to capture the reader's attention. In some minor ways it hasn't dated especially well - it feels a bit 80s, if that makes any sense. It also comes across in some places as a look into the somewhat bigoted mind of the author. I'm all for separating the art from the artist, but that's hard to do when certain neanderthal views and rhetoric is slipped into the text.But what it does have going for it is a lot - the characters, save for Peter and Valentine, come across as real individuals with complex motivations. The children don't come across *as* children, but that's okay since it seems to be a conscious decision to treat them that way and fits entirely into the whole concept of the book. The plot, which time has rendered cliche, is well constructed and expertly executed. The main themes of the book - for example, the role of duty and the burden of informed consent are explored with considerable finesse. The book is in some ways an extended allegory of the Nietzschen concept of the Ubermensch, but deconstructed and inverted. In Ender's game, the Ubermensch isn't a product of his own transcendence of moral and societal conventions, but a product of the explicit engineering of the context in which he lives. Thus, he is a mix of nature, nurture, and the power of social context. None would be as effective without the others. It also hearkens back to the 'Great Men' theory, and reconciles both the classical and modern interpretations - yes, only a truly great person can shape history, but they only become that way through the explicit building of competence by a society that needs them to function as a tool. No-one attains significance in a vacuum. The experiences of Ender have deep implications for those who want to muse on the story once they're finished reading it.Like the best kind of 'young adult' literature, Ender's Game is literature first and 'young adult' second. It doesn't patronise the reader, and leaves the critical and important themes as subtext without feeling the need to grab anyone by the brain and yell 'These are the things about the book you should be finding important!'. It's very highly recommended, but the poorly executed ending robs it of a fifth star. Consider it a 4.5 star book.

I came to this late as I’d always seen it as teen fiction, but I guess it isn’t. I eventually got it as it was covered in a popular sci-fi YouTubers top ten sci-fi book list. I enjoyed following Ender’s story and found myself invested in through his trials and tribulations. Definitely getting more in the series.