Ender's Game

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Ender's Game
Image:Ender's game cover ISBN 0312932081.jpg
1985 first edition (hardcover)
Author Orson Scott Card
Cover artist John Harris
Country United States
Language English
Series Ender's Game series
Genre(s) Science fiction
Publisher Tor Books
Publication date 1985
Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages 357 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-312-93208-1
Followed by Speaker for the Dead

Ender's Game (1985) is one of the best-known novels by Orson Scott Card.[1] Set in a future where mankind has barely survived two invasions by the "buggers", an insectoid alien race, the world's most talented children, including the extraordinary Ender Wiggin, are taken into Battle School at a very young age to supply commanders for the expected Third Invasion. The book takes place in the year 2135, and its sequels, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind, follow Ender to different worlds as he travels far into the future.

The book originated as the novelette "Ender's Game" published in the August 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.[2] Card later expanded the novel into the Ender's Game series, dealing with the long-term effects of the war.

A slightly updated version was released in 1991.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

Mankind has made contact with an insectoid alien race known to humanity as the "Buggers," or more formally as "Formics." The buggers have attempted to invade Earth twice; having been narrowly defeated the second time by a man named Mazer Rackham, and the threat of a third bugger invasion looms large over the Earth.

Enter Andrew "Ender" Wiggin (his nickname given to him by his sister Valentine): a six-year-old boy and third child of his parents, an audacity under the population restriction laws, permitted only by special sanction by the government hoping he will be a combination of his sadistic older brother Peter and his kind hearted sister Valentine. The International Fleet (IF) is seeking the next brilliant military commander among Earth's children. Young Ender is approved by the government for training at the elite Battle School, a space station where children are trained. After a scary confrontation with a school bully, whom he accidentally kills, Ender chooses to accept Colonel Graff's offer to attend, leaving behind his world for the hope of the future.

Upon arrival at Battle School, Ender is immediately singled out by the administration and the other students and kept at arm's length from the camaraderie of the students. He is quickly promoted, annoying many of his commanders with his brilliance, and quickly becomes the top-ranking soldier in school. Ender finds a way around his isolation and frustration by forming his own nightly "practice" sessions, instructing anyone who wishes to come and practice.

Ender is quickly promoted to commander of a brand new Dragon Army, and he molds his young soldiers into an unbeatable team, despite the teachers' stacking of every game against him. Some time after an especially brutal victory against one of Ender's former commanders, Bonzo Madrid, Ender is cornered by Bonzo along with several of Bonzo's soldiers. Unable to escape the situation without violence, Ender convinces Bonzo to fight him alone; Ender unknowingly kills him. After this confrontation Ender is sent to his third battle in one day. Such disregard for the game and any idea for the rules leaves Ender feeling hopeless, utterly abandoned, and disillusioned. Ender learns the lesson that there is no rule book in war and throws his own concepts of the game away. This clever circumventing of an impossible situation incites Ender himself to be promoted to Command School, six years earlier than anyone else in the history of the system. Most leave at sixteen, Ender leaves at nearly ten. He is taken briefly to Earth to visit his sister Valentine.

Ender is taught at Command School by Mazer Rackham, kept alive into his own future by sending him away at near lightspeed and then turning around and bringing him back at near lightspeed. Mazer instructs Ender in a game very similar to the Battle Room, only this time instead of commanding soldiers, Ender will command ships in a 3-D space battle. Mazer puts Ender through a grueling pace of games, followed by critiques and then more games. At this point, Ender is reunited with the closest people to him from battle school as his subordinates in this battle game. Ender commands them directly, and it is up to them to carry out his commands. Ender is told that from now on, he will play against Mazer directly, and that it is these tests that will determine if he is ready to command the fleet that Earth is sending against the Bugger threat.

Each day the games become more and more grueling, and Ender is slowly being worn down to psychosis, along with his fellow commanders. He is haunted by nightmares of the Buggers and thus sleeps very little. Waking and sleeping blend together as Ender loses his sanity, but he maintains his military brilliance. His unreasonable demands on his subordinates create tension, which culminates in one of his friends cracking under the pressure and breaking down into hysterics. Late into a lengthy battle, Ender passes out from exhaustion and his team has to finish the battle without him.

Finally Mazer confronts Ender, telling him that he will face an extremely grueling final exam. The game begins, and Ender is outnumbered 1,000 to 1. His commanders express hesitancy at their odds and Ender, tired and angry at this unwinnable situation, comes up with a desperate plan. He forms his ships into a tight-knit group and sends them directly at the planet, much like the renegade maneuver that won him the impossible game against the two armies back at the Battle School. When the enemy is finally in range, Ender orders the use of a special weapon against the planet itself, destroying the simulated planet and all ships in orbit. Ender consciously makes this decision knowing that it is expressly against the respectable rules of war, hoping that his teachers will find his ruthlessness unacceptable and remove him from command, and allow him to return home.

Ender removes himself from the simulator after the game and finds that everyone in the room is rejoicing. It is revealed to Ender that every battle he has been fighting against Mazer was actually a real battle taking place in bugger space. The military sent ships at the bugger planets many years ago, and outfitted them with new technology making communication possible. Ender realizes that he just ordered the actual destruction of an entire race, and the guilt of the massacre forces him into a five-day coma.

When he awakens, it's revealed to Ender that he is being heralded as the savior of the human race, and now that the bugger threat has been eliminated, mankind is expanding into the empty formic planets and repealing the population laws. Valentine arrives at command school and convinces Ender to go with her on the first ship leaving for colonization. There he discovers an unborn formic queen who through a psychic link with Ender communicates that her race were not aware humans were sentient creatures, that only their defeat during the Second Invasion forced them to realize humanity's true nature; they had resolved to never attack Earth again. He resolves to atone for his destruction of the formic race by finding a place to resurrect the queen, bringing the alien race back into existence. In addition to authoring The Hegemon at Peter's request to tell the truth of his brother's troubled life, Ender writes of the compassion and pain of the formic race and titles his book The Hive Queen, and signs it "Speaker for the Dead."

[edit] Creation and inspiration

The original novelette is merely a snapshot of Ender's experiences in Battle School and Command School; the full-length novel is a more encompassing work dealing with Ender's life before, during, and after the war, and it also contains some chapters describing the political exploits of his older siblings back on Earth. In a commentary track for the 20th Anniversary audiobook edition of the novel, Card stated that Ender's Game was written specifically to establish the character of Ender for his role of the Speaker in Speaker for the Dead, the outline for which he had written before novelizing Ender's Game.

In his 1991 introduction to the novel, Card discussed the influence of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series on the creation of the novelette and novel. Historian Bruce Catton's work on the American Civil War also influenced Card heavily. He also derived the name and basic function of the ansible from Ursula K. Le Guin's works.

[edit] Awards and impact

Ender's Game was the winner of the Hugo Award for best novel in 1986[3] and the Nebula Award for best novel in 1985,[4] two notable awards in science fiction. The following year, the sequel Speaker for the Dead also won both awards; Card is the only author to have won both awards in consecutive years.[1]

Several schools around the world have adopted Ender's Game as required reading, some for its psychological aspects, others for its science fiction background. Some examples include:

[edit] Reviews

[edit] Film

The latest author-written screenplay was finished and submitted to Warner Brothers by Orson Scott Card in May 2003. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were later signed to write a new script, working closely with Wolfgang Petersen. However, as of December 15, 2005, all previous attempts to write a script had been dropped. Card himself has announced he will be writing a new script not based on any previous one, including his own.

As of July 10, 2007, Ender's Game has entered pre-production[6]. Nothing has been released on the content of the approved script, or casting, however based on information from Orson Scott Card's previous scripts, it will be a fusion between Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, both of which take place in the Battle School, but the former from Ender's point of view, and the latter from Bean's point of view.

[edit] About the movie

[edit] Translations

[edit] See also

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Ender's Game

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Ender's Game The Book. Fresco Pictures.
  2. ^ Short Stories by Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game. Hatrack.com.
  3. ^ The Hugo Awards, 1986
  4. ^ 1985 Nebula Winners
  5. ^ "Annotations of Texts Prescribed for the First Time for the Higher School Certificate: Common Content", News South Wales Board of Studies: 3, 2001-2002, <http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/pdf_doc/english_textnotes.pdf>
  6. ^ Ender's Game at the Internet Movie Database

[edit] External links


Preceded by
Neuromancer
by William Gibson 		Hugo Award for Best Novel
1986 		Succeeded by
Speaker for the Dead
by Orson Scott Card
Preceded by
Neuromancer
by William Gibson 		Nebula Award for Best Novel
1985 		Succeeded by
Speaker for the Dead
by Orson Scott Card


v • d • e
Works by Orson Scott Card
The Ender saga:
The Shadow series:
The Tales of Alvin Maker:
Homecoming Saga:
Pastwatch series:
Women of Genesis series:
The Mayflower Trilogy:
Standalone novels:
Short Story Collections:
es:El juego de Ender

fr:La Stratégie Ender it:Il gioco di Ender he:המשחק של אנדר ja:エンダーのゲーム pl:Gra Endera uk:Гра Ендера th:เกมพลิกโลก zh:安德的游戏

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