Rating:  Summary: great read Review: you never know what's going to happen next. you'll really get a feel for the characters in the story right from the start. like all sci-fi books its a little confusing in the begining but after a little while you'll understand the story. but i'll tell you right now, if you try to guess the what's goin' to happen next you're going to be wrong.
Rating:  Summary: Good Read Review: I've read this book probably 15 times. Somehow I find something new to enjoy each time I read it.
Rating:  Summary: I don't get the hype Review: I'm sure my reviewer rank is going to get clobbered for this one but I have to complain about this book. I've been putting off reading Ender's Game for about 8 years now. Every time I would get in a discussion about books the question would come up and I would have to shamefully hang my head and admit to not having read IT yet. "But I do have it on my hot list, and I am planning on reading it soon." I would declare lamely.So last year I made a New Year's Resolution to finally read it. I finally found it on tape unabridged and drove about 40 minutes to a library in a different city to pick it up. Over the course of two weeks I read/listened to it and I was in shock. Nothing happened. It was generic sci-fi. Halfway through I started to realize the story wasn't about him fighting aliens, it was about him training to fight aliens and actually my favorite part was what was happening with his brother and sister back on earth. I never really understood the political situation on earth, who was allied with whom, or what the hegemon was. Yes of course I was touched by the little boy's plight, but the entire book was just a bunch of filler so that he could pull off a startling climax. Then there's the last chapter or two which should have just been stapled into the book as a late addition. The chapter should have been titled 'Setup for the Sequel'. It just didn't fit, it was like you saw some one turn off the video camera and then start it back up somewhere else. I believe he should have kept it a short story, the climax wasn't worth 300 pages of semi-boring, (though well written) fluff. I think comparing this book to Dune is like comparing 'Tom & Jerry' to 'The Simpsons'. It's a whole different level of entertainment.
Rating:  Summary: A Story To Remember Review: I've never been one for science fiction. So when my humanities teacher said we had to read Ender's Game, I wasn't exactly eager. I read the first two chapters when he told us to. I read the 3rd and 4th chapters when they were assigned. I read the fifth chapter just to get ahead. But suddenly, I couldn't stop. The story gripped me. I read and read, and by the next day I had finished the book. I didn't cry, but in my heart I felt like it. Ender's Game brings up the questions of morality, of war, that are stored in our souls and are opened just when we pick up a book like this. This book is one that broke me, because of the destruction of innocence, the constant manipulation, the infinite inner struggles of the characters that make you love and hate the author all at once: love him, because he makes you understand and feel it, and hate him for the same reason. Ender's Game affirms that life isn't black and white. Through the way the tale is woven with threads of simplicity, action, and true human feelings, the reader walks away with the knowledge that he must return. Card tests our minds and our definitions of good and evil when he mixes the purest, whitest form of life with the darkest form of hatred: a child and war.
Rating:  Summary: Best Book I've ever read Review: sometimes you can read a book over and over and every time its different. this is one of those.
Rating:  Summary: A Great Science-Fiction Book for Kids and Adults Review: If you like science-fiction books you should read Ender's Game. It's about a kid named Ender who goes to a military training school called Battle School. Ender has a sister named Valentine and a brother named Peter. He then becomes commander of the Dragon army. Then he goes to Commanding School and commands an army. He thinks it's a game but he is actually fighting. This is a great book for anyone who likes science-fiction.
Rating:  Summary: Intense, accelerating, but has troubled aspects Review: Ender's Game is so full of excitement, intelligence, realism, and with such an interesting cast of main characters and a conclusion that evokes such mixed feelings, nominally triumphant but really tragic, it's hard not to love it. The battle room scenes were especially gripping with their detailed explanations rather than just generalizations. For that, and excellent science fiction, 3 stars. There were at least a couple parts that were disturbing (Card argues in his intro to this 1991 edition that some childran really DO think and talk like Ender and the others, and I'm willing to accept that). Without spoiling things, the world is not democratic; evil forces are in control is almost justified with descriptions of "peace and prosperity". Don't get me wrong but I wouldn't like a book describing a future under communism or facism and putting hope into that, saying that humanity experiences "peace and prosperity". Would you? The ultimate "hegemon" has quite a bit of blood (partially) on his hands. There are other characters who do some reprehensible things and get away with it. In the end, a crushing look at politics (as with war). A supposedly more sympathetic character, Ender's sister Val, allows herself to be used by evil and never seems to completely atone for her actions. She runs away, is still the smiling kid who asks why she shouldn't be allowed to have fun, and doesn't seem to be bothered by the fact that she was so easily, hopelessly repeatedly, controlled, and helped mislead millions of people. This should have been better developed. She even partially justifies it, claiming that we all "fill roles" given to us by others. While this may be true, they are not the right words to be coming out of this particular character's mouth. Well the book is entertaining enough but that entertainment seems overshadowed by pain and tragedy, all well represented within the character Ender, and the ironies that result. It draws in the reader very personally. I think it has to, because we are enjoying the "games" which lead to the killing, by reading the book, in that sense we are like Ender who is the actual doer. Add these elements together, sometimes I think the troubled consquences are simply suppressed or put aside one too many times; the last chapter didn't happen soon enough and wasn't long enough; things went on too long too complacently when evil ruled politics and while Ender followed violence so far (wittingly or not). This is very troubling, because it suggests, despite evidence to the contrary, that the war was after all the centerpiece of the book, and that the other factors were simply the decoration, the after-thought, the accompanying philosophy that cannot exist without first military priorities or military victory. Which would make it a glorification, intentional or not, of violence, and evil. If you think I am crazy judge for yourself. I suppose I am sensitive to such subtleties because I have read one too many biased writings, and know how subtle and troubling these biases can be, even unconscious ones, despite facades that are presented.. It was honestly that thought that kept me awake at night long after I had finished this book. Well, you can come to your conclusions, but while I am unwilling to certainly condemn, and can only express doubts, those doubts are enough to keep me from ever being completely comfortable with this book.
Rating:  Summary: A Successful and Exciting Novel Review: "Ender's Game" was an exciting novel that kept me wanting to read more after every page that I turned. I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Ender's Game", because it was well written. At some parts you could feel exactly how Ender felt, because of the author's wonderful description. You also felt like you were in the story watching this young hero grow up and become a man. As Ender makes his way through Battle School with all of theother geniuses of the world,he over comes many obstacles, and becomes a hero, Ender makes many trustworthy friends who help him along the way. I would recommend this book,and the sequel "Ender's Shadow" to anyone who is interested in things like space, science fiction, and stories with magnificent heroes!
Rating:  Summary: Disappointing Review: Before reading this book, a friend of mine had me under the impression that this book presented a cogent science fiction realm where intellect could thrive. I, unfortunately, did not find quite what I was hoping for. The literature itself was an annoying read for the writing style was lacking in clariy or simply bogged down with overly childish cant. More importantly, however, I felt the book only lightly skimmed over the constituents of the philosophic implications of the technology or situations of the presented time, despite the fact that this, primarily, should be the essence of expression via science fiction. From other praise, I see that many derive philosophic significance from some part of this book, but I am quite confused as to its source. I felt there was quite a platform for the presentation of ideas of huge significance in both saving a world and living day-to-day life, but Card did not seem to actually probe these ideas to any extent. Simply put: the ideas that could have been were not developed. In the book's defense, I will say that a couple of entertaining twists were thrown and that, if one were to take some of the ideas that were almost planted herein and run with them through several conversations, something interesting might crop up on occasion that is, indeed, worthy of consideration. Lastly, I am no major fan of contemporary science fiction; I read mostly non-fiction, so my opinion might be jaded by the thrills I find in our own non-fictional world. Overall, the book was probably a waste of time. I seek higher intellectual thrills than this book was able to give me.
Rating:  Summary: A very satisfying work of social science fiction Review: I picked up _Ender's Game_ with few expectations. After all, I had abandoned science fiction (with a few exceptions, such as Isaac Asimov's oeuvre) long ago for more varied climes, and the long list of books in the Ender series made me very suspicious of Orson Scott Card as a writer. Well, my suspicion of Card was justified, but my wariness towards the book was not. _Ender's Game_ presents the reader with a not-exactly dystopia inhabited by a frighteningly bright six-year-old boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin. He is tested relentlessly and in the end comes through. I vastly simplify things, yes, but that's the essential story. The ending is extremely moving, and the path there is filled with intriguing plot twists, character development, and quite a few viscerally emotional scenes. Why only four stars? Well, it's not a perfect book. I am prepared to grant Ender genius status, for example, but I just can't believe in a station full of eight-year-olds who talk and act like adults. A station full of teenagers, okay, but the existence of so many adult-minded prepubescents strains my suspension of disbelief a bit too much. Not much to nitpick otherwise; besides some inexplicable scenes, it's a very solid, well-written book. Unfortunately, Mr. Card couldn't leave well enough alone, but insisted on tying up every last loose end over the course of the next books (_Speaker for the Dead_, quite good but very different; _Xenocide_ and _Children of the Mind_, which I haven't read but which sound rather lacking; and the "Shadow" series, focusing on one of Ender's co-trainees, Bean, which contradicts Ender's Game and almost threatened my liking for the series). Ender's Game has a fantastic ending, Speaker a good one, but Card insisted on fleshing out the series, and thus killed the creative, imaginative process that great fiction spawns between author and reader. Definitely read _Ender's Game_; if you need more, read _Speaker for the Dead_. If you need to know the rest, your own imagination may serve you better than Card's.
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