Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card

Apr 2010 · The Ender Saga Book 1 · Sold by Macmillan

About this ebook

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is the winner of the Nebula and Hugo Awards

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

Ender's Game is the winner of the 1985 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

THE ENDER UNIVERSE

Ender series
Ender’s Game / Ender in Exile / Speaker for the Dead / Xenocide / Children of the Mind

Ender’s Shadow series
Ender’s Shadow / Shadow of the Hegemon / Shadow Puppets / Shadow of the Giant / Shadows in Flight

Children of the Fleet

The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
Earth Unaware / Earth Afire / Earth Awakens

The Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
The Swarm /The Hive

Ender novellas
A War of Gifts /First Meetings

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ratings and reviews

This book was ahead of its time. To have the perspective it does and tackle issues such as children during wartimes, stress and mental breaks, abusive family life, gang mentalities, warcrimes, the corruption among the world's politicians setting all of it in motion, and even redemption. Seriously a lot of ideas that are touched upon that could (and in some cases do) set up another book to explore those ideas. So many of the negative ratings on this book cite their dislike of the author. If we cancelled all the works of people that have opinions that don't conform to today's mainstream standards, we would still be inventing the wheel.

The rumors I heard about Ender's Game have now proven to be true. I have always heard the Ender's Game was "such a good book" and now my voice can join with those critics who are young and young at heart. Orson Scott Card held my attention all through out Ender's adventures. I was striving to fully understand what made Ender tick and I discovered pieces of his character as the book went on I was especially curious to see how Orson Scott Card's writing would be. I knew that he was an LDS author and I had just recently had a lot of experience reading LDS literature. Card's writing is very unique in relation to many of the other authors, whose works I read. If I didn't know that Card was LDS, I never would have guessed from reading Ender's Game, mostly due to the language. I would say that card was rather bold with some of the scenes and language used by characters. This book seemed to fit all age groups. Even though the main characters were children, they were going through "grown up" situations dealing with large amounts of pressure being put on them and dealing with competition. Just from reading the dialogue, one almost would have guessed that adults were the main characters were adults. Honestly, I didn't suspect the ending until I noticed there weren't enough pages to fit in a suiting battle against the buggers. The ending was well disguised, but it didn't catch me completely by surprise. It did, however, explain Ender's behavior, which I thought was necessary. I would be anxious to see this book turned into a movie, which says a lot about how much I liked this book. H. Pinnock

As a junior attending a San Diego high school, I was assigned the ever tedious task of reading yet another novel for my English class. Contrary to all the books I’ve read previously, this particular selection, Ender’s Game, written by Orson Scott Card, is in fact the first science fiction novel I have ever read. Ender’s Game is one of the few books I have studied from a scholarly standpoint, and it was well worth both the time and energy it took to read. The book’s adventuresome plotline captures the heart of the futuristic advances that people so often fascinate themselves with as children; dreaming of one day keeping up with the Jetsons. Written in 1985, Ender’s Game has thus far stood the test of time and remains a depiction of the future, yet a much nearer one than the inventive mind of Card could have possibly foreseen. As time progresses, the novel transforms to fit the mold of the new generations. At the time, such ideas felt light years away, yet today such inventions like the screen on Ender’s desk that transports messages instantaneously are present with today’s technology. Other fictional advances, like the Battle School Ender attends in space, suddenly seem possible. Card brilliantly depicts the ignorance of a child as the tool needed to save the world. Ender does not place himself subject to boundaries, allowing emotion to override his conscience, unlike adults would through reasoning. Ender is not a genius because of his intellect or knowledge, but because of his ability to see things from outside the box since he has not been trained to think in a certain manner. In this way, Card instills an importance in the existence of children. The end, the only area I saw in Card’s work with room for improvement, was satisfying yet overdrawn. The book’s foundation is based on a series of intergalactic battles, or “invasions,” between humans and an alien race called “buggers.” Card follows his finale of the Third Invasion with the beginnings of what I assumed to be one of the proceeding novels in the Ender series, which in my opinion was quite unnecessary. The overall structure Card uses to construct his novel is easily comprehendible and maintains a mysterious vibe, using only the third person to show the viewpoints of all characters involved and strategically leaving information undisclosed until later in the book. Ender’s Game is an impressively quick read, full of fast-paced, non-stop excitement with the exception of one chapter in particular, chapter nine. The chapter goes overly into detail, in my opinion, exhausting the aliases of Ender’s brother and sister, however once you get through it, the novel picks up immediately and seems to come to an end in no time at all. The author creatively takes full advantage of the limited vocabulary of a general adolescent. The beginning chapters of the book are saturated with humorous insults, reminiscent of childhood years as they are today, and serve as a constant reminder of the immaturity attributed to the characters. Card incorporates what appears to be the maximum amount of characters possible to follow, yet executes this skillfully by weaving the lives of the characters together with one common denominator, Ender Wiggin. A cornucopia of literary techniques is used to develop Card’s story. He foreshadows later events through the conversations that take place between I.F. officials at the beginning of each chapter. These portions are strictly composed of dialogue; however dialogue is also seen periodically throughout the book to aid in making it feel more interactive and immediate in a sense. Despite the fact that the book is written from an outsider’s stance, it is delivered to the reader mainly from Ender’s point of view with some exceptions including conversations between the I.F. and Ender’s siblings. Yet even these outside conversations and subplots tend to revolve around Ender, Card’s quite obvious protagonist. The styling of this

About the author

Orson Scott Card is best known for his science fiction novel Ender's Game and it's many sequels that expand the Ender Universe into the far future and the near past. Those books are organized into The Ender Saga, the five books that chronicle the life of Ender Wiggin; the Shadow Series, that follows on the novel Ender's Shadow and are set on Earth; and the Formic Wars series, written with co-author Aaron Johnston, that tells of the terrible first contact between humans and the alien "Buggers".

Card has been a working writer since the 1970s. Beginning with dozens of plays and musical comedies produced in the 1960s and 70s, Card's first published fiction appeared in 1977--the short story "Gert Fram" in the July issue of The Ensign, and the novelette version of "Ender's Game" in the August issue of Analog.
The novel-length version of Ender's Game, published in 1984 and continuously in print since then, became the basis of the 2013 film, starring Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, and Abigail Breslin.

Card was born in Washington state, and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. Besides his writing, he runs occasional writers' workshops and directs plays. He frequently teaches writing and literature courses at Southern Virginia University.

He is the author many sf and fantasy novels, including the American frontier fantasy series "The Tales of Alvin Maker" (beginning with Seventh Son), There are also stand-alone science fiction and fantasy novels like Pastwatch and Hart's Hope. He has collaborated with his daughter Emily Card on a manga series, Laddertop. He has also written contemporary thrillers like Empire and historical novels like the monumental Saints and the religious novels Sarah and Rachel and Leah. Card's recent work includes the Mithermages books (Lost Gate, Gate Thief), contemporary magical fantasy for readers both young and old.

Card lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card, He and Kristine are the parents of five children and several grandchildren.