I decided to read Ender’s Game as my first book in a category I’m calling “Career Makers”. In this category, I’ll take on books that were either an author’s break-out piece, or works successful enough to reorient the writer entirely to focus on more like it. I’ve not watched the 2013 movie “Ender’s Game”, nor have I read the sequels, but this isn’t the first book I’ve read by Orson Scott Card. Back in high school, I read his nonfiction book “How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy”, and it was a solid book that I would recommend to any aspiring speculative fiction writer.
I grabbed a paperback copy of Ender’s Game from my local used book store. It has the original cover art, with the Hugo & Nebula Awards proudly displayed on top. My version was a revised edition that’s biggest change was the removal of the Soviet Union, which fell a few years after 1985, the book’s original publishing date. A few years ago, my brother mentioned that the United States Marine Corps has a suggested reading list, and this book is one of the crowd favorites on it. In his foreword, Card explains his military research that shaped the book in such a way that would land it on the USMC’s list. While not a novel on detailed military tactics, “Ender’s Game” definitely illustrates many tactical and strategic concepts in a fun and accessible way.
The two major themes I found in this novel were “forced violence” and “manipulation”, and they were nearly always in tandem. Card uses the age of his characters to repeatedly slap his audience awake. Threatening exchanges of dialog and combat would start to become the norm, and then we’d be reminded that the participants are only 6 years old. Speculative fiction writers, especially Science Fiction writers, typically find themselves giving societal predictions, and Ender’s Game paints a bleak picture of lost innocence: In a society with genetic engineering and FTL technology, humanity takes the pinnacle of the race and turns them into intergalactic weapons.
It’s difficult to not write spoilers for Ender’s Game. A subplot featuring Ender’s siblings feels a bit contrived and bolted on, but simultaneously paints an eerily accurate portrait of today’s alternative media and it’s consumption. I’d argue this is probably the most accurate prediction in the whole novel.
The final two chapters of “Ender’s Game” were both endings. Chapter 14 gives us the twist, and then Chapter 15 gives us an open ended resolution. In the spirit of being spoiler-free, I’d check out the last line of the book and remember that one of the permeating themes throughout it is “manipulation”. Ironic.
Even with revision, a few things continue to date this novel. Originally (and ironically) I think they were meant to add variety/diversity to the cast of characters, but in execution they were just racial slurs and stereotypes.
I mentioned that the sibling subplot feels contrived, and the final chapter is no exception. The open-endedness of this chapter feels like it was written after Card had ideas for sequels. The otherwise unnecessary sibling subplot feels bolted on to support this ending. I found a few plot holes regarding the ending that bothered me enough to Google them. I was glad to see that I wasn’t the only one to be bothered by them, else I figured I had missed details that explained them away. Apparently OSC addresses them in the sequels, and that’s good.
Regardless, “Ender’s Game” stands alone without sequels. Card’s prose is easy-breezy and a pleasure to wolf down. It’s easy to see why it’s a pop favorite, a Sci Fi classic, and a “Career Maker”.
“Ender Wiggin isn’t a killer. He just wins– thoroughly.”
— Orson Scott Card, “Ender’s Game”
