Apr 21, 2005 06:18 PM
2599 Views
(Updated Apr 23, 2005 11:09 PM)
Growing up, my opinion of science fiction was that it dealt with thinking up some creative scientific concept as the premise and just weaving a story which consists mostly about exploring the premise and its implications. that character development is not a priority( pardon me for generalizing but I had only read asimov at that time ).
Orson Scott Card has in this book managed to do what I had not expected of science fiction. He takes a perfectly valid premise and while exploring the premise very intelligently, manages to portray a heart rendingly humane side of the protagonist. Scott card has a very fertile imagination for conjuring up alien speicies and alien situations and he has done as much justice as he could here.
About the story.
Enders game is about a future earth where children are recruited for military training very young ( at about the age of 3) and undergo an intensive training to become military commanders. Earth has been attacked by an alien race called buggers and the military is desperately searching for a military leader capable of fending them off again. And grooming the military leaders involved making them play games.. a number of games.. which ender is very good at.
The story deals with what ender goes through and what he grows up to be. In the course of the story, 'Ender's game' explores various topics very well simultaneously. It details the interaction between alien races, Child psyche, military training, social behavior and strategy to survive in a competitive world.
About the style
The book is totally unputdownable in its narrative. Atleast for me, the book had me rivtted to my couch all night, while I cursed, cussed and still could not get myself to leave the book. I am dead sure that any body who reads this book will be instantly able identify to atleast of many of the characters with the people they deal with everyday.
And as for those with a taste for the dramatic and fantastic worlds and species.. trust me the stuff that gets done is WAY COOL!!!!!!!
most of Scott Card books are series. I have read the next in this series, called , The speaker for the dead. If you have read, you will be able to appreciate the book better. Speaker for the dead has the most amazing depiction of an alien I have seen thus far. I had no clue one could think like that. Though ''Speaker for the Dead'' is great book ( and a hugo award winner .. what about that ), it comes a little bit behind enders game. Mainly because it doesnt endear you to ender as much as this one does.
Bottom line..
Trust me, you've gotta read this.
