Ender's Game (The Ender Saga, 1)

From New York Times bestselling author Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game--adapted to film starring Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford--is the classic Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction novel of a young boy's recruitment into the midst of an interstellar war.

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.

Orson Scott Card's 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

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256 pages

Average rating: 8.15

251 RATINGS

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11 REVIEWS

Community Reviews

Zookreeper
Aug 29, 2024
7/10 stars
Kept my attention and interesting.
margardenlady
Dec 27, 2023
10/10 stars
Card has set up a dystopia that puts agism on its ear. Ender is a 6 year old genius who is being groomed to be the commander of the interspace army. I don't much care for battle descriptions generally, but these weren't endless play by plays, so I was good with that. What was really intriguing to me was the psychological machinations that Ender suffers through trying to figure out who to trust and how hard to try. Those are decisions we all make every day genius or not, and it made him a truly endearing character.
BerserkerEzell
Oct 01, 2023
My absolute favorite book containing the principles of leadership, and violence. Very tellingly psychological as well.
Anonymous
Sep 09, 2023
10/10 stars
I was really captured by the story and devasted by it's ending.
Steg
Jun 24, 2023
8/10 stars
Interesting, with a good twist and insights. Tough to imagine some things. WAYYY different then the movie. Both equally good

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