This is my vote for the single worst novel every written. It is to literature what Manos the Hands of Fate is to cinema. It is difficult to even describe how bad this book is, but I will try. Imagine a ripoff of Starship Troopers with the following: idiotic subplots that go nowhere, completely unlikeable characters, terrible dialogue, and plot points that make you want to bang your head against a wall. Combine this with heavy pro-Nazi symbolism and you have yourself one hell of a bad book. An evil, insectoid race called the "buggers" (rather than the bugs from Starship Troopers) have attacked the Earth and must be wiped out before they can attack it again. Earth sends its entire star fleet on a 120 year journey to the bugger homeplanet to defeat the buggers once and for all. It is decided that a great, child general must be created to govern the fleet from far away via transmission signal. This is despite the fact that several of the ships are Death Stars and can destroy a planet in a single shot and we know the buggers (like the bugs) are dependent on just a few brain bugs to function. We found this out when the hilariously named Maori general, Mazer Rackham, defeated the 1st bugger invasion fleet. Just to get this out of the way, "bugger" is English slang for gay and the author of this book belongs to a far right sect of Mormonism that hates gays. Ender Wiggam displays his strategic brilliance at a young age by beating his school bully to death. "If you fight brutal enough, they won't dare pick on me again." A real child genius would go into hiding due to fear of arrest. This is because strategic geniuses can see many "moves" into the future. Ender on the other hand believes that this action will have no consequence. In fact Ender doesn't realize that when his opponent has stopped moving and breathing following severe head trauma, that he is probably dead. Instead of putting Ender in Juvenile, the adults think he has the makings of a great general and send him to strategy school. Imagine if the US army put Seung Hui Cho in charge of Afghanistan following his brilliant solution to peer isolation. In Starship Troopers they have laser tag at the academy because they are INFANTRY and need to practice. In Ender's Game the generals play laser tag to improve thier strategy. Ender "brilliantly" covers his pads using arms and legs and cheats his way to victory. Apparently the other kids hadn't thought of this and everyone is amazed by Ender's brilliance. Everyone except the evil Bozo Madrid who challenges Ender to a fight. Ender simply kills him and continues casually with his day. A virtual reality simulator is another puzzle at the battle camp. The player is a mouse and a giant keeps killing you no matter what you do. Ender decides to run up the giant's arm and attack the eyes and face. Apparently being able to beat any boss in Shadow of the Collosus makes you the next Alexander the Great. A subplot develops where ender's evil brother Peter develops a scheme to take over the world via arguing on internet blogs. People always listen to what other posters say on a blog and don't stubbornly keep thier own opinions. The people elect this mysterious blogger to be leader of Earth. Peter never does anything significant as ruler of Earth and this subplot is simply never adressed again. Now that Ender has established himself as the world's greatest general, he is put in charge of the Earth's entire fleet. This despite the fact that any instructions he sends will travel at light speed without some kind of warp drive and will take over 100 years to arrive. In Ender's Game his instructions are fast enough to instruct a live battle. Ender's boss decides to make Ender think that this is simply another game. That way he won't be nervous. He also won't think his actions will have consequence and will be completely reckless with the lives of OUR ENTIRE STARFLEET. Ender "brilliantly" goes with the strategy of getting a death star close to the planet and blowing it up, which kills the brain bugs. Instead of Death Star they are called Mass Destruction device and because MD is also medical doctor, they call it Dr. device. (I fucking want to kill Card!) The people of the future have been brainwashed by liberal propaganda and think the Buggers didn't deserve to die. They don't realize that Ender is the great savior of Mankind. Ender is viewed as evil and calling someone Ender is the greatest of insults. Ender goes into hiding on planet Brazil (I'm not fucking kidding) and that is the end. Unless you are severely cognitively impaired you will realize that Ender is Card's representation of Hitler. In fact many of Ender's biographical details (even age he lost virginity) are lifted from Hitler's biography. The real Ender killed the "buggers"(faggots) along with Jews and other filth that deserve to die despite what libby propaganda tells you. This brilliant piece of art helps the reader understand the truth about our noble Fuhrer. HEIL ENDER! To be serious, I was very confused as to HOW IN THE NAME OF HOLY FUCK this piece of trash has fans. However, this is the same world where millions think Brittney Spears is good music, millions followed the real ender, and over 100,000 fucking morons worldwide STILL somehow follow the real ender. To be fair, most readers of course don't use thier reading comprehension and analysis and simply see this as a good yarn. The majority of the fanbase are normal people with questionable writing taste, not neo-nazis. Even still, GOD DAMN does this book suck!!!

There was a time in my life when I wanted to grow up to be Ender Wiggin and I loved this book for that. Its about a kid that is chosen as the "only hope" for human kind and all he has to do is learn how to battle in space at space battle school. I have to admit that I did not realize this was a child sci-fi book until I started reading it and at that point I began to have the same complaints I had when reading The Giver or even Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. They were good books but I want some bad kids, and not the kind of bad kids that bully the main characters. I want truly unbiased and destructive kids. Ender's Game especially let me down when the love of Ender's life ended up being his sister who he runs away with.

There isn’t anything wrong with escapism, but there was something about the way this book encouraged narcissistic fantasies that grated on me. The lure seemed to be that you should identify with the protagonist, which means: You are remarkably brilliant and special, and anyone who stands in your way is an idiot or psychopath. Any failures you encountered weren’t really your fault, but due to a conspiracy against you. But don’t worry, they’ll get their comeuppance. You’ll beat the shit out of the kids who are picking on you. You’ll embarrass people who doubted you. You’ll be universally admired. The only problems you’ll have will be the weight of the responsibility others put on you, and how lonely you’ll be because you are such an awe-inspiring leader that others can’t relate to you.

To be fair, I know the book is deeper than this. And the above setup is layered with irony, so the more sophisticated reader is meant to take away a more complex message. And it does take some interesting twists at the end that gives you something to think about. So, it’s probably fair to say the point of the author wasn’t for the reader to revel in success and revenge fantasies. But I do think that’s the lure of the book.

This book is commonly recommended for Young Adults. I hope it doesn’t turn them into smug jerks.

There are also a couple plot issues that didn’t make much sense to me. For instance, the book features children who don’t act like anything near their age. Maybe I should have just let that go, but it was really distracting.

While the above review sounds negative, the story still did capture my interest throughout, and I liked the twists at the end.

I read this in high school, and it was one of my favorite's at the time. I just re-read it as the movie is out, and was glad to see it's still one of my favorites. Ender is pretty much just badass. The military strategy and leadership is actually one of my favorite things about this book.

The notion that Ender was set apart from the other kids as an intentional tactic to make him into a leader was always fascinating to me. In many ways I can relate to it. Ender's story is one of leadership, and leaders often have to balance empathy with big picture priorities. His older brother was too harsh and lacked empathy - but Ender is the perfect balance.

One of the key ways Ender keeps winning is by being aggressive and proactive, rather than reactive. Both with the bullies, in war games, and with the buggers, he takes them out before they have the chance to take him out:

"Knocking him down won the first fight. I wanted to win all the next ones, too. So they’d leave me alone."

"When it comes down to it, though, the real decision is inevitable: If one of us has to be destroyed, let’s make damn sure we’re the ones alive at the end. Our genes won’t let us decide any other way. Nature can’t evolve a species that hasn’t a will to survive. Individuals might be bred to sacrifice themselves, but the race as a whole can never decide to cease to exist. So if we can we’ll kill every last one of the buggers, and if they can they’ll kill every last one of us."

I didn't fully understand the point of the plot line about Enders brother and sister becoming net celebrities. I mean it was cool, but this cartoon summarizes it well: http://xkcd.com/635/

What I like about this book is that Ender is pushed to his limits to improve himself, which shows a raw side of humanity. It makes you think. Here is a quote which I think encapsulates that well:

"There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the only rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you."

No stars for you, homophobic douche.

In 2008, Card made a bunch of idiot statements about gay people. I disliked ENDER'S GAME when I read it many years ago; it's a tedious tale of strangely and negatively homoerotic/pedophilic prurience; but reading his work and insulting it became a mission in 2013. That was the Year of the Deletions, when Goodreads committed a horrendous breach of trust by simply deleting reviews flagged by a group of idiot users as "not community friendly" or some such crap.

Users affected by this weren't given notice of the company's intent to destroy their data. It simply...vanished. At that time, I was a significantly more well-read reviewer than I am now. I left Goodreads out of a sense of outraged solidarity with people who had no backups of the content they created, unpaid and out of love for books, that Goodreads then and now uses as value-added sales material. Not that long after Amazon took over Goodreads, it became obvious that "negative" reviews were in for a flagging and, if that wasn't enough, a trolling.

So many issues got rolled into the outrage and sense of violation that goes with some business entity acting ham-handedly that it became easier and better for my personal mental health (which would snap shortly anyway) to get out of here. I went from the Forbes 25...the 25 most influential reviewers on the site...to a group blog and a lonely little personal blog for new reviews. Naturally enough my supposed sway here diminished and then pretty much vanished as life's vicissitudes finally caught up with me and sent me to the psych ward for a good long stretch.

But before I vanished, I mocked the many 5-stars-or-else thugs who ran (possibly still run, I'm better at ignoring people these days) roughshod over the idea of respectful disagreement with the opinions of others by rating some of their darlings as above. It drove them nuts that I rated books like this one AND had read them, so was immune to accusations of partisanship.

Well, not immune, I was and am a partisan of political, social, economic, and moral Liberalism and liberalism. It shows. I'm happy with that.

So rather than review the books at the time I read them, I rated them and waited for the haters to hate. They didn't disappoint me. Three years on, I don't care about the anvil chorus of conform-or-suffer any more. So here it is: I didn't like this book by an author whose politics and personality I don't like.

Orson Scott Card's science fiction classic Ender's Game is about the fate of Ender Wiggins, brother of the psychotic but brilliant Peter and the his beloved sister. It is a dystopia in which a child army is raised against the invasion of the "buggers" which are barely described in the book. There are some conventional Mormon views expressed (thinly veiled anti-Semitism, racism, and a bit of sexism) throughout that makes me want to take the review down to a "2" or "3". However, the plot advances once Ender graduates early from Combat school and things get really crazy and interesting.

There is also a side-story where the sister Valentine and the psychotic Peter become newsnet (the internet as such did not yet exist when Card wrote the book in 1985) celebrities Demosthenes and Locke. This was an interesting precursor and warning about social media's nefarious and insidious influence on current events. The phenomenon becomes so huge and surreal that even their parents are quoting them at the dinner table. Perhaps readers in the 80s would have found this idea preposterous, but recent history has proved this to be uncomfortably close to reality. As intelligent as Valentine is, the description of her character is still flawed in that she is unnaturally explicit with her brother about her period and her sexual development - well unnatural outside a Mormon context perhaps. In any case, I felt it was clear that it was a male writer letting a bit of his taboo fantasies seep into his writing when he was talking about Valentine.

Why is it a classic? Well, because it is sort of a modern sci-fi reading of Lord of the Flies combined with a Machievelian reading of 1984. I felt that the second half of the book was far more interesting than the first half. Naturally, I also saw the massive influence this book had on, say, other more recent sci-fi such as Red Rising. Again, I hesitated between three and four stars, but because of the serious moral failings on behalf of the author, I'll stick with 3 stars just like I gave Starship Troopers.

Fino's Enderverse Reviews in internal chronological order (I think):
n  n - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
n  n - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

One wunderkind takes over the internet while a subplot focuses on another wunderkind's video gaming. The central ambiguity, left unresolved, is which kid is more likely to still live in his parents' basement at age 30?

¿Por qué deberías leerlo?
La humanidad enfrenta su mayor amenaza: los Insectores, una raza extraterrestre con una mente colmena, incomprensible para los humanos, que pretende destruirlos. Para enfrentarlos, el mundo necesita algo más que estrategias convencionales: un genio militar que piense de forma completamente nueva. Así nace Ender Wiggin, un niño excepcional cuyo destino está predeterminado incluso antes de su nacimiento. En un mundo donde las familias tienen prohibido tener más de dos hijos, Ender es una «anomalía», un tercer hijo que debe cargar con el peso de justificar su existencia. Y lo hace. Vaya si lo hace.

Desde el inicio, Ender es llevado a una academia espacial, un entorno donde los videojuegos, las simulaciones y las batallas tácticas no son solo ejercicios, sino la preparación para la guerra real. El nivel de presión al que está sometido, tanto física como psicológicamente, es descomunal. Y es aquí donde Orson Scott Card muestra su maestría, explorando las emociones humanas con una profundidad desgarradora. No es solo ciencia ficción; es un viaje a través del liderazgo, la moralidad y los sacrificios que la guerra exige.

Me he quedado absolutamente fascinada. No exagero cuando digo que este libro ha pasado directo a mi lista de favoritos. ¡El final! Madre mía, el final… fue un golpe maestro que no vi venir, tan impactante como épico. Es el tipo de historia que te mantiene en vilo, pero que también te deja pensando largo tiempo después de haberla terminado. ¿Cómo se puede hacer esto con un niño de apenas seis años? Card no solo lo logra, sino que lo hace de una forma tan realista y emotiva que te rompe y te reconstruye a partes iguales.

El uso de los videojuegos y simulaciones como herramienta para entrenar a Ender no solo es innovador, sino aterradoramente visionario. Cada batalla, cada decisión que Ender toma, te sumerge más en su mundo y te hace cuestionarte todo: ¿es justo el precio que paga por ser el salvador de la humanidad? ¿Dónde termina el entrenamiento y comienza la manipulación?

Aunque está recomendado para lectores a partir de 13 o 14 años, la historia tiene una profundidad y un mensaje que cualquier adulto podría disfrutar y admirar. Es autoconclusivo, sí, pero una vez que terminas, el universo que Card construyó te atrapa de tal manera que querrás seguir explorando sus otras novelas.

En definitiva, El juego de Ender no es solo un libro, es una experiencia: una obra maestra que combina estrategia, emociones y dilemas éticos en un relato absolutamente inolvidable. Lo recomiendo con toda el alma, porque estoy segura de que dejará en ti la misma huella que ha dejado en mí.

Más en mi web : https://fantasyliterature.es/

Ugh. Okay. I'm officially giving up on this one.

So, a little disclaimer here. I do not like Orson Scott Card. As a person. I think he's a shitty human who's used his award-winning author status as a platform to advocate the denial of other humans' rights. This is detestable to me.

But that is not why I rated this book 1 star.

The reason I gave this book 1 star, and have given up even trying to read it, is because I do not like Orson Scott Card. As an author. This was the second book of his I've read - or tried to read- and it will most assuredly be my last. I finished the other one, but can't say I liked it, though it was... interesting. This one I just couldn't even muster up any meh over, and it's supposedly his best work. I disliked it almost immediately.

I made it about 15%, and I've read about all I can stands, I can't stands no more.

The writing is awful. We're told what Ender thinks. We're told what Ender feels, and does, and says, and why, and despite supposedly being in his head, I don't understand or like him at all. We're told he's a genius. We're told he's mastered calculus as a toddler, that he can hack school computers with ease. We're told that he plays game A. Then he beats it, and plays game B. In every game, the goal is conquer and kill, and he's the best at it. But we're told that Ender does that only when he's forced... but then we're told that he likes it - no he doesn't! - yes he does. He stabs the game giant in the eye and likes it, and then when the giant is 'dead' and no longer an obstacle, out of boredom, he wishes he could murder it again. Because he liked it. That's why he's The One. Duh.

The ridiculous chapter-leading nameless dialogues are terrible and jarring and distracting, and they take me out of the story. Which is a very bad thing when I'm disliking and uninterested in the story as it is.

The complete lack of characterization is shameful. These kids, and especially Ender, who is SIX YEARS OLD and likes to throw the N-word around like it's a frisbee, sound like adults that I wouldn't even want to talk to, let alone root for. I don't like, understand, or care about a single character in this book. Not one. Wait, I might like the Buggers, but that's only because I feel like they have to be decent if they want to rid the universe of this society of sociopaths and groomed killer children.

Then there's the fact that I'm apparently supposed to believe that a society as advanced as this one, with space travel, in-body monitoring of thoughts and actions of their potential recruits, the ability to at least partially coax out genius children by specialized breeding, etc, would be so casually dismissive of female potential as to respond to a question regarding whether there will be girls at this murder-camp with "A few girls. They don't often pass the tests to get in. Too many centuries of evolution are working against them." Because, apparently, only Y chromosomes can carry intelligence and females are just sub-par, even at evolution. How can they be a war leader and savior of humanity if they can't even master upward evolution, like males have?

Oh, but wait... which entry tests were those again? The ones that require extreme violence? Stomping the shit out of another kid, albeit a bully, was the only test-like thing I saw that earned Ender a spot at murder-school. And it's OKAY that Ender put him in the hospital, because he was forced to do it or keep being bullied. There was no other solution. So maybe that little comment was a backhanded compliment to us of the gentler, weaker sex. Our delicate sensibilities just don't automatically run to murderdeathkill at the slightest provocation, which from what I can tell makes females completely valueless except as future-soldier-makers, so yeah, I guess we fail. Darn!

I don't buy the concept of putting all of the eggs of an apparently critically endangered humanity into a single basket that consists of a child 4 years away from attaining the glorious achievement of double digit age. But wait, this war is apparently on hold while this generation of future soldiers grows up? How awesomely considerate of the "Buggers". I now see why they must die. /sarcasm

Which brings me to the "Buggers". They are aliens. Got that. Apparently, there's no possibility of aliens NOT wanting to wipe out all of humanity... because, you know, the universe isn't big enough for the both of us. I was really, really hoping for a plausible reason why these aliens would want to kill people, but I got nada. Perhaps it's explained later. Or maybe this is just fear and hatred of the unknown. I don't know, and frankly don't care all that much, but it just feels like we're supposed to just go along with the story that implies that different = bad and must be killed.

I'm not squeamish or tender-hearted. I fully believe in killing off characters that need to die, even and especially if it's painful to the reader. Violence, in general, doesn't bother me, and I have no trouble reading about abuse, or death, or destruction, or brutality. But it needs to have a purpose and reason for existing on the page. It needs to be honest, and realistic, and plausible. And I didn't feel like that was the case here. It felt like it was for pure shock value here, placed with ever more aggressive offensiveness with the hopes of a reaction. "OMG! they are just babies! Oh the brutality! Won't someone save the children?!" And it worked, because my reaction is to stop reading this shit called a book. The racism, misogyny, hatred of the 'different', the adult condoned and encouraged cruelty and alienation of weaker or smaller children, the violence and genocidal-tendencies in a 6 year old all made me hate every minute I spent reading, or avoiding, this book, and only confirmed that Orson Scott Card is not someone whose work I will ever read or watch again.

I could go on, but I'm done with this book. Writing it off and washing my hands because they feel like they've been holding something disgusting and slimy. I haven't seen anything even remotely redeeming in this book, nothing that makes me think that the rest of it would be worth my time, and I'm done.

Okay, some people find this book kind of juvenile and have trouble suspending disbelief long enough to enjoy it. For those folks, you might want to move along from Ender's Game.

Ender's Game is the twenty-five year old science fiction classic that's soon to be a major motion picture. Actually, the film comes out in November of 2013.

Unlike many hard-core science fiction titles, this book is particularly appropriate for a younger audience. By the way, this new young adult edition of the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning classic includes an original postcript by the author, a man (Orson Scott Card) who just so happened to win the Margaret A. Edwards Award for outstanding lifetime contribution to writing for teens. One interesting thing about the interview is he reveals that the novel is all about leadership. Go figure.

Back to the story...

Its protagonist, Ender Wiggin, is just six years old at the novel's beginning and still a pre-teen by the time the story ends. Ender's parents have received special permission to have a third child in spite of strict population control laws in the society in which they live. His brilliant older siblings, Peter and Valentine, have all kinds of promise, but still don't have what it takes to be considered for the commander that the International Fleet (I.F.) so desperately needs.

The novel asks an important question: What does it take to successfully lead men into battle?

Battle comes in the form of alien invasions of Earth (two thus far). During the last invasion, mankind survived only because of the brilliance of Mazer Rackham, commander of the International Fleet.

Years later, a third invasion is feared and the I.F. believes that Ender may be the commander they need. They hope he can lead them to victory should the alien "buggers" invade again.

Ender ends up displaying the desired combination of compassion and cruelty the I.F. wants in their commander and they take him to Battle School, where brilliant children are trained in military strategy and tactics. Ender is only six years old when he is plucked to succeed Rackham and sent to the space station "school."

In Battle School Ender is isolated, ridiculed, bullied, and pretty much persecuted. He shows the wherewithal to survive and even thrive these difficult circumstances.

Using his astonishing intelligence, the boy learns to be a leader and to act with the vengeance of a top-notch solider. His youth and small stature fail to hold him back, and Ender climbs the ranks quickly. Ender is only 12 years old when he begins commanding his fellow soldiers, earning their respect and ultimately their fear of him.

The centerpiece of their education is a game that simulates battle. Naturally, Ender is very good at this game and this is the biggest reason why he becomes the youngest commander in history. Anyhow, Ender's life in the school and the various games, trials, and tribulations in which he excels are very richly described.

As successful as Ender is, you discover that he's ultimately a pawn in the larger game being played and controlled by the I.F.. It's weird because you find yourself sympathizing with him and cheering him on despite him being a pawn.

The political and philosophical focus of the end section of the novel may not appeal to everyone.

This is such a brilliant portrait of character development not only with Ender, which was seriously top notch, but literally every character you come in to contact with.

It seriously blows my mind all this little boy was able to achieve at such a young age. I mean I know he's a genius but I think of my 8 year old son and I'm not able to comprehend everything he had to go through.

One thing I reallllly loved is there was no love story. Not one little shred of it. Don't get me wrong I enjoy them from time to time but it had no place here so I'm glad to author had the wisdom to focus and not stray away from the core story.

I can't wait to dive in to the 2nd book!

I watched the movie too, let's just say it didn't really live up to the book. But then again, they rarely do.

Bruh