Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
[amazon]
Six year old Ender was bred, born and raised to save the world from the buggers, an alien race apparently bent on the destruction of earth. He’s taken from his family at six and put in a training regimen where he turns out to be the best ever at the training games, just as he was expected to be. They treat him badly, he perseveres. He wins, but ends up not caring.
There’s supposed to be some big hubub about thsi book, but frankly I don’t see it. It’s a good story, fairly well told although it has a lot of missing pieces. There’s nothing really earth shattering here (so to speak). Still, it’s a quick and entertaining read. The only thing that really bugged me about this edition, is the new introduction by the author. Let’s just say that neither modesty nor humility is Card’s long suit and leave it at that. So off-putting was this introduction, that I almost didn’t read the book. Introductions are often important. My advice on this one is skip it. Read the book though, at least it’s pretty good.
June 13th, 2006 at 11:54 am
I always skip introductions. I was a little irritated to learn that the intro to Life of Pi was part of the story not an actual introduction.
I agree with you that Ender’s Game was just okay. Give the next one a shot (Speaker for the Dead) - it’s nothing like the first book and starts to get really interesting.
June 13th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
A friend of mine jacked me up with a bunch of gruesome true crime books that I need to slog through. I’m quite looking forward to those though. I also have Flashman queued up.