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Ender's Game

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Ender's Game
1985 first edition (hardcover)
AuthorOrson Scott Card
Cover artistJohn Harris
LanguageEnglish
SeriesEnder's Game series
GenreScience fiction
PublisherTor Books
Publication date
1985
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages357 pp
ISBNISBN 0-312-93208-1 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character
Followed byEnder in Exile 

Ender's Game (1985) is a science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card.[1] The book originated as the novelette "Ender's Game", published in the August 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.[2] Elaborating on characters and plot lines depicted in the novel, Card later wrote additional books to form the Ender's Game series. Card released an updated version of Ender's Game in 1991, changing some political facts to accurately reflect the times.

Set in Earth's future, the novel presents an imperiled humankind who have barely survived two conflicts with the Formics (an insectoid alien race also known as the "Buggers"). In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, an international fleet maintains a school to find and train future fleet commanders. The world's most talented children, including the novel's protagonist Ender Wiggin, are taken at a very young age to a training center known as the Battle School. There, teachers train them in the arts of war through increasingly difficult games including ones undertaken in zero gravity in the Battle Room where Ender's tactical genius is revealed.

Reception to the book was generally positive, though some critics have denounced Card's perceived justification of his main character's violent actions. Ender's Game won the 1985 Nebula Award for best novel and the 1986 Hugo Award for best novel. Its sequels, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind, A War of Gifts, and Ender in Exile, follow Ender's subsequent travels to many different worlds in the galaxy. "Ender's Game" has been adapted into two comic series and is planned for a video game.

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Synopsis

Setting

In the book, humankind experiences large-scale confrontations with a largely unknown alien race called Formics (often referred to as "buggers") who nearly wipe out humanity. As a result, humankind enters a shaky alliance to combat the Formics with the formation of an international military unit, the International Fleet (IF). In the futuristic setting, humankind develops interstellar travel, faster-than-light communication (derived from the ansible from Ursula K. Le Guin's works), various new weapons and defense mechanisms, and control over gravity. Earth is governed by three separate bodies, the Hegemony, the Polemarch, and the Strategos, which compete for dominance during the war.

Most of the story focuses around the Battle School, a space station used as a military training complex for children. The IF tests all children on earth and selects the brightest for the Battle School for military training. Students are organized into forty-one man armies and assigned to conduct simulated battles in null gravity. Upon graduation, students move on to either Tactical School, Command School, Combat School, or Pre-Command School. The Battle School forms in response to the need of highly skilled officers for the wars against the Formics, and most of the officers in the IF pass through the school at one time.

Plot summary

In the novel's opening, the government selects Andrew "Ender" Wiggin for training at the elite Battle School. At Battle School, the commander Hyrum Graff publicly recognizes Ender as the most intelligent attendee. This acknowledgment causes other students to resent Ender, isolating him from most of the other children. Ender soon ranks among the school's elite child soldiers, eventually achieving the school's top rank. Even after his success the other children continue to ostracize him. Ender attempts to escape his isolation and frustration in various ways, but experiences little comfort until he receives a letter from his older sister Valentine, reminding him of his reasons for attending Battle School in the first place.

Ender realizes that he is at Battle School to protect his sister. The Battle School brass soon promote him to commander of a new army in the school's zero-gravity wargame league. He molds his young soldiers into an undefeated team, despite working with an inexperienced army. Ender's army implements innovative strategies, abolishing old methods like the use of formations in the battle room.

The Battle School administration promotes Ender to Command School ahead of schedule. In command school, Ender plays a game very similar to the Battle Room, only he commands ships in a 3-D space battle rather than soldiers. His subordinate officers are fellow students advanced early from the battle school who later become known as "Ender's jeesh." Each day the games become increasingly grueling, and Ender is slowly worn down to exhaustion. Waking and sleeping blend together as Ender nearly loses his sanity, though still maintaining his military innovation and leadership. Eventually, Mazer Rackham, a legendary hero of the Formic wars, is brought in to train Ender for his final test.

Ender's "final exam" consists of a scenario where bugger ships outnumber Ender's fleet 1,000 to 1 near a planetary mass, the bugger home world. Ender orders the use of a special weapon, Dr. Device, against the planet itself, destroying the simulated planet and all ships in orbit. Ender makes this decision knowing that it is expressly against the respectable rules of the game, hoping that his teachers will find his ruthlessness unacceptable, remove him from command, and allow him to return home.

After Ender orders the destruction of the bugger planet, Rackham tells him that all the simulations were real battles taking place in Formic space. After Ender realizes that he is responsible for the destruction of an entire race, the guilt of the genocide sends him into a coma.

When Ender recovers, Valentine convinces him to leave on the first colony ship to another world. On this colony, Ender discovers an unborn Formic queen who can communicate with him through a psychic link. She tells him that her race was not aware that humans were sentient creatures. The Formic defeat in the Second Invasion awakened them to humanity's true nature, and they had resolved to never attack Earth again. Realizing his crime, Ender writes a book under the pseudonym "Speaker for the Dead" entitled The Hive Queen, wherein he tells of the compassion and pain of the Formic race, which becomes the foundation of the Ender's Game sequels.

Critical response

Critics generally received Ender's Game well. The novel won the Nebula Award for best novel in 1985,[3] and the Hugo Award for best novel in 1986[4], considered the two most prestigious awards in science fiction.[5][6]

New York Times writer Gerald Jonas criticizes the novel's plot as "grade Z, made-for-television, science-fiction-rip off movie", but says that Card develops the elements well despite this "unpromising material". Jonas further praises the character Ender Wiggin as "Alternately likable and insufferable, he is a convincing little Napoleon in short pants."[7]

Much of the negative criticism the book has received stems from the novel's violence and the way Card justifies the violent actions of Ender Wiggin. Elaine Radford's review "Ender and Hitler: sympathy for the superman," criticizes the novel on several points. She likens Ender Wiggin to Adolf Hitler and criticizes the violence in the novel, particularly at the hands of the protagonist.[8] Radford's criticisms are echoed in the essay "Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality" by John Kessel. Kessel reasons that Card justifies Ender's righteous rage and violence, stating, "Ender gets to strike out at his enemies and still remain morally clean. Nothing is his fault."[9]

Revisions

In 1991, Card revised the book. He made several minor changes to reflect the political climates of the time, including the decline of the Soviet Union. In the afterword of the audiobook for Ender in Exile, Card stated that many of the details in chapter 15 of Ender's Game have been modified for use in the subsequent novels and short stories. In order to more closely match the other material, Card has rewritten chapter 15, and plans to offer a revised edition of the book sometime in the future.[10]

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Translations

Ender's Game has been translated into 27 different languages:

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Ender's Game.

References

  1. ^ "Ender's Game The Book". Fresco Pictures. Retrieved 2008-01-17.[dead link‍]
  2. ^ "Short Stories by Orson Scott Card". Hatrack River Enterprises Inc. 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-03.
  3. ^ Mann, Laurie (22 November 2008). "SFWA Nebula Awards". dpsinfo.com. Retrieved 3 January 2009.
  4. ^ "The Hugo Awards By Year". World Science Fiction Society. 9 December 2005. Retrieved 3 January 2009.
  5. ^ "The Locus Index to SF Awards: About the Hugo Awards". Locus Publications. Retrieved 2009-01-13.
  6. ^ "The Locus Index to SF Awards: About the Nebula Awards". Locus Publications. Retrieved 2009-01-13.
  7. ^ Jonas, Gerald (June 16, 1985). "SCIENCE FICTION". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-01-11.
  8. ^ Radford, Elaine (2007-03-26). "Ender and Hitler: sympathy for the superman (20 years later)". Elaine Radford. Retrieved 2009-01-11.
  9. ^ Kessel, John (2004). "Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality". Science Fiction Foundation. Retrieved 2009-01-11.
  10. ^ "Ender in Exile". Audio edition, Macmillan Audio, Nov 2008
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