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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 the buggger's communications system 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. (Ending up murdering two school boys in the process. Uhm, major wtf there.)

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.

This book came recommended many times over the years. It is fast paced and interesting. Definitely easy to get into. Not sure if you would like it if you are not a sci-fi fan. I have not heard great things about the rest of the series, so I stopped here, but is definitely a book that can stand on its own.

Hmmm, I find it hard to understand the level of following this particular book gets.

Ender's Game is the type of sci-fi that doesn't interest me much. 225 pages about a boy playing video games, battling in zero gravity, and learning about how military works? I can work up some interest for these things, but there has to be some characters I care about. However, how exactly am I supposed to find compassion for a boy who goes from one task to another never failing and always being the best at EVERYTHING, and not because he works hard to achieve his greatness, but because he was genetically engineered to be the best? Where is the conflict and character growth here I wonder? And then the kids. I wish even one of the characters actually acted like a kid, or a human being at least. I personally only saw cardboard in every direction.

I suppose there are some interesting ideas about military training, manipulation, and leadership, but I admit, I mostly found myself bored to death by numerous battles, which I couldn't visualize, and it's-so-hard-to-be-the-bestest-ever-genius whining.

Listening to the author's speech at the end of my audio book didn't endear me to him personally either. He is just not a very sophisticated person, but he surely knows his audience of prepubescent boys and gamers well. Plus I have very little respect for writers who create not because they have something important to say about our society and human condition, but because they are paid 5 cents per word to do it.

I think I will stick with Ursula K. Le Guin for now, whenever I am in a mood for some alien action, and resign myself to the fact that Ender's Game's cult classic status is something I will never be able to understand.

P.S. I did have a blast reading reviews about the author's obsession with naked, soap-lathered little boys. How they came up with this pedohomoerotic BS, I have no idea. Did we read the same book?

P.P.S. I also had a blast reading Card's raging homophobic "essays."

this book started off so good but immediately got silly, i don’t care how far in the future it is, it’s so unrealistic that children would be useful in the military. and then on top of that it’s realistic for young boys to be in the military but uncommon for women because evolution “worked against us” ok. also what do you mean a 12 year old and a 10 year old decide they were going to take over the world by starting a debate column.. just absolutely silly.

In this science fiction book Earth is at war with the "Buggers" an insect-like alien species that has attacked Earth several times.



Ender Wiggins is a brilliant six-year-old boy with a sadistic older brother Peter, a loving sister Valentine, and parents embarrassed to have three children in a society where two is the norm.



Ender is given the opportunity to attend Battle Academy, a space-based school where children are groomed to be military officers in the war against the Buggers. Though Academy students must leave Earth and their families for many years Ender decides to go. The commanders of the Academy believe Ender might be "the one" who can defeat the Buggers, and purposely make his training very difficult.



Even when Ender is the target of jealous bullies he is left to handle his problems by himself in the hopes of shaping Ender into a superior self-reliant officer.

Most of the book describes Ender's training at Battle Academy where combat strategies in zero gravity are learned.



Ender is a good student and even helps train his friends, all of which leads to a strong militia. Any more description would contain spoilers so I'll just say the story has some interesting characters and a few surprises.

For me the repetitive scenes of battle training got a bit old but I think a lot of people would like this book.

You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot....

Excellent book. I didn't care for the way the series went after this volume...(the later books tell you more about the writers belief system than about the story sometimes. But that's only my opinion.)

As for this book It's a well done and interesting story. The characters are well developed and real. Mostly, I liked it.

I have recently heard a few comments from Mr. Card in which he comments on the greater success Ender's Game has enjoyed as opposed to the volumes that followed. He expresses the opinion in said comments that Ender appeals to a "younger" audience having more action and also being centered around a child and that the other books deal with deeper more complex issues and therefore didn't do as well. I suppose it will always be the case that readers have a differing view and opinion of a writer's work than he himself does. This is, for me at least, the case here. While what he says is true in that EG does have more action etc. and is about a young character (ie) Ender, I don't believe he's hit the actual reason for the first books success completely on the head. In my humble opinion Ender's Game is simply..... a better book. I think it's a far better book. That doesn't mean I didn't get his later books (yes I got the secret early on in Speaker For the Dead as I suspect most did) yes I understood... no I didn't agree in most ways and I was a bit bored. Not however exclusively from lack of "action". The books after Ender's Game (at least up to the Bean books which try to start over) are far more concerned with Mr. Card's theosophy than with over all story or his future history and I burned out on his theories and opinions early on.

Some may of course disagree with that (as I know Mr' Card does) and that's fine. This is my opinion and what I saw. I just read Ender's Shadow (reviewed later) and may "re-look" at some of the other books. I read Empire by Mr. Card and saw a lot of the same "opinionating" there and didn't follow that book up...same view even a familiar character doing familiar things. Still, this is an excellent book and I highly recommend it. Check the rest for yourself and see what you think of them. I could be wrong ;).

Wow! One of the rare times I read a synopsis on GoodReads before reading a book and it contains the biggest spoiler imaginable. Big enough to actually ruin the story. Like what the actual fuck!? Who thought that was a good idea? If you have any interest in this classic go into it blind. For shame!

Kids of the 70's really were built different. My 8 year old cries if we're out of ketchup. These 6 to 12 year olds are in outer space playing war games virtually and physically with no mommy or daddy in sight. Ender Wiggin is tougher than nails. He has a big heart and a good sense of right and wrong, but that doesn't stop him from doing truly horrible things when life gives him no choice. Anyone with a rough upbringing can easily relate with him.

It's a bit difficult to accept that all 3 Wiggin children are superstars in their own way. What are the odds? Especially when you consider that they had average parents. If you can get over that, you too can fall in love with the Wiggins, their world, and this series.

This was the first book I picked up and read all the way through in one sitting. Technically, it's not a difficult read but conceptually it's rich and engaging.

"They have a word for people our age. They call us children and they treat us like mice."

If you can't understand that statement, you probably won't like this book. It's about intelligent children. Not miniature adults- their motivations, understanding, and some-times naivete clearly mark them as children. But at the same time their intelligence and inner strength define them clearly as people. Their personalities are fully developed, even if their bodies are not.

The book is about war. About leadership. And about the qualities that make some one a powerful or admirable individual (not always the same thing). In this book children are both kind and cruel to each other as only children know how to be. It is not an easy book for anyone who understands childhood to be a happy time of innocence. Even still, the characters retain a certain amount of innocence.

The questions posed by the war, by the handling of the war, are relevant today, as they were when the book was written, and as they have been since the dawning of the atomic age. Foremost is the question of what makes someone or something a monster. It is an easy read, but not always a comfortable one.

I'd recommend this book for intelligent children. The sort that resent being talked down to and treated like kids. Here is a book that does not talk down to them, but understands and empathizes with them. Also I recommend it for adults who used to be that kind of child, even if science fiction is not your usual interest. More pure science fiction fans will find it interesting, as will those who enjoy exploring the philosophies of human nature and war.

This book sets out to make you think.

In Orson Scott Card’s science-fiction novel Ender’s Game, we meet Ender Wiggins, a talented little boy who has the fate of the world on his shoulders.

After an extensive period of monitoring, Ender attends a school for gifted children, training to learn the techniques to battle the buggers, an alien lifeform.

When I started my career, I worked at an automotive company where I can only describe the environment as ideal. Our leader, we will call him King Arthur, was always looking out for his team. If you were only there for two weeks, he would come by your desk and let you know he thought of you for this amazing assignment.

When lunch came around, the entire group would make eye contact and go down to lunch together. No one forced us. We genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. In fact, one gentleman even won the lottery and came back to work!

Now, a few years later, I returned to work for this company. King Arthur had retired, and in his place was The Witch. The Witch required that you worked until 4 am. She would not work during the day (instead went to the gym) so she worked late at night, expecting everyone else to work the day and night. She would call meetings and then just never show up for them, wasting an entire roomful of people’s time without so much as an “I’m sorry.”

If anything was wrong, The Witch would blame you. If the work product was great, The Witch took the credit for herself.

So what makes these leaders? Open Ender’s Game.

The brilliance of Ender’s Game is not necessarily the plot but the emotional intelligence and the symbolism. If you have worked in Corporate America, you know that life isn’t always fair. Some people are out to get you. But what can you say to motivate your team? Does your team need breaks to thrive? Open Ender’s Game.

This book also brilliantly captured what it is like being at the top. Do you feel like quitting at times? You bet. Are things changing rapidly? Certainly.

And Ender’s Game depicts how the most talented are also working harder than most. When Ender had secret techniques, he “told them freely, confident that few of them would know how to train their soldiers and toon leaders to duplicate what his could do.”

Last, but certainly not least, the science fiction aspect of this book is a little unsettling. Portions of Ender’s Game were initially published in 1977. In the book, Ender and his team have a messaging system that sounds incredibly similar to today’s email or Team messaging.

Overall, this book is well worth the read. I would say that it felt like a mashup of Dune and Ready Player One. Highly recommend.

2025 Reading Schedule
JantA Town Like Alice
FebtBirdsong
MartCaptain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
AprtWar and Peace
MaytThe Woman in White
JuntAtonement
JultThe Shadow of the Wind
AugtJude the Obscure
SeptUlysses
OcttVanity Fair
NovtA Fine Balance
DectGerminal

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I don’t care. I just don’t like it

Debo confesar que tenía este libro en mi lista de libros por leer desde hacía mucho tiempo, da la casualidad que me topé con la película en la televisión y la vi completa. Ante los rumores de que era una adaptación muy fiel al libro quede satisfecho y decidí que no iba a leer nunca, groso error.

La historia tiene todos sus méritos para ser considerada de las mejores de la historia del género. Es increíble como el autor maneja conceptos que son más que vigentes para la actualidad, son prácticamente profeticos. Como el uso de dispositivos personales parecidos a la tablets con interfaces diseñadas para la nube y con IA, el uso de las redes sociales para difundir opiniones distorsionadas y cambiar la opinión pública al alcance de cualquier persona, el uso de la realidad virtual para el entrenamiento militar y los vídeo juegos de exploración tipo GTA.

Además de eso, Card ha escrito un libro conciso con sólo 350 páginas. Todo ocurre fluidamente y esto lo hace muy entretenido.

Me arrepiento en el alma haberme spoleado el libro con la película la verdad es que no vale la pena.

Lo guardaré dentro de mis libros favoritos de siempre.

No doubt about it, Ender's Game is Young Adult fiction because of the way it sometimes switches loose ends instead delving into the nitty gritty a bit more.

But it's still a five-star read and couldn't be anything else.

There's also the questionable way that children talk as adults, but not to the detriment of the book.

This book represents the stark reality of dystopian future perfectly, with power struggles at all levels between adults and kids, older and younger siblings, and powerful leaders and their subordinates, as a reflection of the real world and our perennial struggles.

Ender's Game has elements of Dune about it, too, although maybe not at such an epic level.

And anything that emphasizes to young readers that life's no bed of roses, I'm all up for that.

Although this book is written for and about young adults, it's rarely feels restricted. Ender lives through a perpetual lifestyle of being bullied, first by his older brother, next by the army, then by overwhelming odds presented by the enemy, as he fears becoming what he hates the most - a tyrant, an oppressor, or just another bully himself. And we all know what that feels like - to become something you despise and "just another brick in the wall" that makes no real difference.

It's the dystopian sadness and futility that makes this book surprisingly deep.

A book about boys and girls playing sports and video games to resolve the wider problems of mankind and the universe. Childish maybe, especially as aliens are called buggers (bugs).

These games and sports are played to decide who's best, instead of going through nasty war to battle for petty territories while causing the death of thousands of people. Why do it when points and high-score tables will do just fine? Kids understand. Send drones instead. Let them blow up machines and consoles. There's no need to actually kill each other.

If that sounds a bit wimpish, it's not. There are physical fights and confrontations that are live-or-die terrifying.

There's also a great section involving a surreal role-playing game similar to Alice In Wonderland, or Jack and The Beanstalk, in which Ender constantly gets killed and has to respawn like in any typical video game. The emphasizes the futility of playing against an AI that never tires of gets bored, which is fun until it turns into a grind.

It's the mix between virtual and physical that makes Ender's Game such a curious read.

Although it's about bullying and war as Ender focuses on continuous survival against oppressive environments and abstract odds, it's also a book about peace and how one man (or boy) can get on with everybody to achieve the wider goals of being a respected leader. A pacifist rather than an aggressor, taught to fight, survive and win, through his determination to never quit!

The system does everything it possibly can to break Ender, by waging impossible battle odds and bullying him in every possible way. But he never gives up or accepts total defeat and that's an inspiring attitude, especially if you can't find your own way with such a long path ahead of you.