Ender’s Game is a book about a boy who has to save the world. In the hands of a lesser author, this story might have degraded into the stuff of comic books and after-school cartoons. Orson Scott Card however manages to deliver a fun novel, filled with action and ethical dilemma.
Ender’s Game is light Science Fiction. Normally Science-Fiction asks a question about civilization as a whole. It generally operates within the existing laws of science, and makes one or two exceptions. It poses the question: If mankind developed a certain type of technology what implications would it have for human spirituality, psychology and sociology. Ender’s Game by contrast treats technology the way some Fantasy treats magic. It is simply a means to make the story flow, to get past logical obstacles.
Ender’s Game is about controlling other people, and the most important technologies in the book revolve around communication. Orson Scott Card seems downright prescient in his description of The Nets
: an interconnected system of web pages where people can comment on the opinions of others. This is as good a description of modern blogging as any. It makes you wonder if the idea was an extension of current trends, or if Orson Scott Card helped to shape the progress of Web Software. Given when the book was published, (1985) either is quite possible.
The Big Idea of Ender’s Game is that it is fundamentally wrong to attempt to shift away personal responsibility. This is a theme echoed by Robert Heinlein among others. Orson Scott Card said that his book Speaker for the Dead was the far more serious and adult oriented book, which I think recommends it above Ender’s Game. I’ve put it on my list and hope to reach it soon.
Because so many people have read and loved Ender’s Game, I recommend reading it. It is a fine book to ease you into Science Fiction. I think many people have loved this book because it so closely resembles Fantasy. Orson Scott Card says that the difference between Fantasy and Science Fiction is that the former has trees on the cover and the latter has rivets. This is a dramatic over-simplification, but in the case of Ender’s Game it seems quite true.