Ender's War

Ender's War:

The first entry into the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card was very good. I didn't really know what it was about, aside from reading the info in the front cover and seeing some of the previews of the movie, and so I knew it was about using children to fight a war with an invading alien, the buggers. Ender (his sister's childhood pronunciation of Andrew) was monitored early on to see if he could make it to Battle School. The instructors use every tactic in the book to see if he is the one who will lead their troops to victory. Pretty well done, but not very many developed female characters (his sister and the one female who made it to battle school).

Speaker for the Dead:

Great continuation to Ender's Game. I found it to show more be so very different from the first book, where Ender was a child forced to grow up quickly. In Speaker for the Dead, he's all grown up, and travels the universe to speak for the dead - to find out about someone who has died and present their life to those who knew him or her. It touches on similar issues from the first book - what do you do when you meet an alien species? Very well done. show less

One book - two novels.

The first is the Sci-fi seminal work Ender's Game. I read this novel many years ago and loved the Battle School scenes, in fact I loved this entire book, the characters, the plot, virtually everything about it. Rereading it again, the story shows it's age a bit, the ending which seemed cool to me as a kid, seems forced now, a bit unrealistic that the battles were actually real and not a game and not noticed doesn't seem possible. And, the relationships between siblings seem very one dimensional. Still, the Battle School is way cool and the concepts it introduces still rock.

The second book is a much quieter story, in essence a murder mystery story involving a second non-human race. I found this story equally show more fascinating but in a totally different way. It explores the what makes us human theme, it tosses in pain and grief, it talks about culture and yearning, and is generally a very interesting read.

Both, highly recommended, for totally separate reasons. show less

Ender's Game is a complicated book. It's mostly about how to deal with bullying, but with many other threads. Published in 1985, it anticipates universally networked computers, global discussion networks, and complex computer games. It looks at shaping a person into a weapon, and has at its core the shifting battle games that make that possible. And then it has quite a long epilogue with a sad and hopeful conclusion.

Scifi

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