If You're in My Office, It's Already Too Late: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together by James J. Sexton
A great "how-not-to" book on relationships with some highly entertaining courtroom stories thrown in for good measure. I recommend the audiobook version as Sexton's narration is charismatic and nuanced.
In the wake of two invasions by the alien "buggers", Ender's Game follows a six year old boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, who is chosen to attend Battle School. There, promising young children are groomed to lead humanity's forces in case the buggers strike again. The following review will focus primarily on the ideas played with in the book (very mild spoilers for Ch. 1).
TL;DR version: Come for the interesting zero-G battles, stay for the complex moral choices.
Given the title, one might expect there to be lots of gaming and scheming in Ender's Game and, indeed, it is flush with both. The primary focus of Battle School is a war-game played in zero-gravity. Every child is assigned to an army which competes against other armies to determine who goes on to Command School, and ultimately who becomes an officer in the International Starfleet. The objective of the game is to disable enough of the opposing players (using guns which freeze other players' suits) so that your army can pass through the enemy's gate. There is much discussion of training, strategy, and tactics, with the interesting concept of zero-G maneuvers explored in-depth. However, though it is interesting, the science-fiction setting serves mostly to explore the following themes and ideas.
Two of the most prominent themes are 1) the relationship between empathy and control and 2) balancing the desire to win with the desire to be moral, especially when the line between game and reality are blurred. From early on, it is show more clear that Ender is extremely smart but, beyond that, he has a unique ability to shift his perspective which allows him to understand others' motivations and puts him in powerful positions. For humans in general, this ability to empathize allows us to understand the motivation of others, which in turn allows us to predict their actions, and ultimately gives us some control over them. Many of the most interesting passages have to do with deciding what to do with that control once it is attained. Equally interesting though, is the choice of how to treat someone with whom we cannot empathize and, therefore, cannot control (at least, not humanely; fear of pain is always easy to exploit). The alien race of the buggers is used to great effect in exploring the latter situation.
Ender’s other great asset is his ability to quickly identify the rules of a system (virtual or face-to-face) and how they might be circumvented. Often times, given the war-like nature of the games he must play, this puts his desire to win at odds with his desire to treat his opponents humanely and with respect. An early example is when he is cornered by a schoolyard bully, Stilson, and his friends. Ender catches the bully off guard with a kick and must decide to either 1) leave now and hope to fend off Stilson & company again next time (probably in greater numbers) or 2) break the rules of civilized fighting and beat the defenseless Stilson as he lays on the floor, effectively preventing any further battles. Stratified choices like this one, which appear wrong when considered at one level but right when considered at another, occur multiple times in Ender's journey. What is best for a squadron leader may differ from what is best for humanity, and that may differ still from what is best for all intelligent species. Again, the ability to take multiple perspectives comes into play.
Other important themes include: walking the line between being a friend and being a leader, the isolation that comes with being a leader, and finding the sweet-spot between pushing someone enough to reach their potential and pushing them so hard that they break.
Ender himself is well-realized as a character. His empathetic nature is important to the story, but he himself is also easy to empathize with. Card has a great way of examining motivations and the way Ender often considers the possible outcomes of his choices before making them allows us to understand his conclusions and help us better identify with him. And though he has an immense intellect, Ender is still a child for much of the book and is correspondingly vulnerable. At the beginning of nearly every chapter is a conversation between Ender's overseers, who are trying to find a way to balance his needs as a child with their need for him to become a leader.
Overall, Ender's Game was a joy to read and I highly recommend it to those interested in any of the above themes. show less
TL;DR version: Come for the interesting zero-G battles, stay for the complex moral choices.
Given the title, one might expect there to be lots of gaming and scheming in Ender's Game and, indeed, it is flush with both. The primary focus of Battle School is a war-game played in zero-gravity. Every child is assigned to an army which competes against other armies to determine who goes on to Command School, and ultimately who becomes an officer in the International Starfleet. The objective of the game is to disable enough of the opposing players (using guns which freeze other players' suits) so that your army can pass through the enemy's gate. There is much discussion of training, strategy, and tactics, with the interesting concept of zero-G maneuvers explored in-depth. However, though it is interesting, the science-fiction setting serves mostly to explore the following themes and ideas.
Two of the most prominent themes are 1) the relationship between empathy and control and 2) balancing the desire to win with the desire to be moral, especially when the line between game and reality are blurred. From early on, it is show more clear that Ender is extremely smart but, beyond that, he has a unique ability to shift his perspective which allows him to understand others' motivations and puts him in powerful positions. For humans in general, this ability to empathize allows us to understand the motivation of others, which in turn allows us to predict their actions, and ultimately gives us some control over them. Many of the most interesting passages have to do with deciding what to do with that control once it is attained. Equally interesting though, is the choice of how to treat someone with whom we cannot empathize and, therefore, cannot control (at least, not humanely; fear of pain is always easy to exploit). The alien race of the buggers is used to great effect in exploring the latter situation.
Ender’s other great asset is his ability to quickly identify the rules of a system (virtual or face-to-face) and how they might be circumvented. Often times, given the war-like nature of the games he must play, this puts his desire to win at odds with his desire to treat his opponents humanely and with respect. An early example is when he is cornered by a schoolyard bully, Stilson, and his friends. Ender catches the bully off guard with a kick and must decide to either 1) leave now and hope to fend off Stilson & company again next time (probably in greater numbers) or 2) break the rules of civilized fighting and beat the defenseless Stilson as he lays on the floor, effectively preventing any further battles. Stratified choices like this one, which appear wrong when considered at one level but right when considered at another, occur multiple times in Ender's journey. What is best for a squadron leader may differ from what is best for humanity, and that may differ still from what is best for all intelligent species. Again, the ability to take multiple perspectives comes into play.
Other important themes include: walking the line between being a friend and being a leader, the isolation that comes with being a leader, and finding the sweet-spot between pushing someone enough to reach their potential and pushing them so hard that they break.
Ender himself is well-realized as a character. His empathetic nature is important to the story, but he himself is also easy to empathize with. Card has a great way of examining motivations and the way Ender often considers the possible outcomes of his choices before making them allows us to understand his conclusions and help us better identify with him. And though he has an immense intellect, Ender is still a child for much of the book and is correspondingly vulnerable. At the beginning of nearly every chapter is a conversation between Ender's overseers, who are trying to find a way to balance his needs as a child with their need for him to become a leader.
Overall, Ender's Game was a joy to read and I highly recommend it to those interested in any of the above themes. show less
Instead of trying to reduce our negative effects on the world (being "eco-efficient") what you will find in this book is how to maximize our positive effects (how to be "eco-effective"). It involves truly taking responsibility for the things we create by considering from the start what happens to our products at their end; switching from a "cradle-to-grave" approach to a "cradle-to-cradle" approach where products are made of biological nutrients (material that can be thrown away safely, even beneficially) or technical nutrients (material that can be safely recovered and re-used by industry).
What's great is that the book itself serves as an example of what it describes: it's not made of paper. Instead it's made of a high grade plastic that can be re-used by the manufacturer indefinitely or, if you'd rather keep it, can be safely placed on your shelf for many years without much wear. The ink can be stripped from the pages by the manufacturer and re-used to print other such books. This kind of construction makes the book extremely durable and waterproof while also providing for the possibility of upcycling.
It's not perfect, however. The kind of systems required for manufacturers to implement their cradle-to-cradle approach will take time to develop, since they will essentially need to completely overhaul the ingredients that go into making their products. They even admit they couldn't yet completely eliminate all harmful materials from the book's construction. However, I show more believe that any shift we could make towards cradle-to-cradle design would be beneficial; at least it gets us thinking about how the things we make could be safer.
In any case, the world of abundance the writers describe in the book is inspiring. I hope one day we'll have, as they invite us to imagine, "buildings like trees; cities like forests." show less
What's great is that the book itself serves as an example of what it describes: it's not made of paper. Instead it's made of a high grade plastic that can be re-used by the manufacturer indefinitely or, if you'd rather keep it, can be safely placed on your shelf for many years without much wear. The ink can be stripped from the pages by the manufacturer and re-used to print other such books. This kind of construction makes the book extremely durable and waterproof while also providing for the possibility of upcycling.
It's not perfect, however. The kind of systems required for manufacturers to implement their cradle-to-cradle approach will take time to develop, since they will essentially need to completely overhaul the ingredients that go into making their products. They even admit they couldn't yet completely eliminate all harmful materials from the book's construction. However, I show more believe that any shift we could make towards cradle-to-cradle design would be beneficial; at least it gets us thinking about how the things we make could be safer.
In any case, the world of abundance the writers describe in the book is inspiring. I hope one day we'll have, as they invite us to imagine, "buildings like trees; cities like forests." show less
Lots to love here, with a good amount of humor. My favorites are, "The Dead Past", "Jokester" , and "Living Space". I'll have to finally try out some of his longer works.