Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, Summary

Introduction: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Preeminent science fiction and fantasy author, Orson Scott Card won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel for Ender's Game and Ender's Game: Speaker for the Dead, his best known novels. Published in 1985, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is a military science fiction set in a future time. This book is part of a series.

A lot of military strategists study this book because it is so good.

What is Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card About?

Humankind faces elimination by an alien race – buggers – from another planet. Humans have encountered buggers twice before, the last time 70 years ago, but earth’s hero, Mazer Rackham won the war for humans. Unfortunately, the buggers rose again and military officials are desperate to find the right person to lead.

In this future world, the military is recruiting children as young as six years old who are considered geniuses. They fix a computer to the children to monitor their behaviours. Orson Scott Card introduces the reader to the Wiggins family.

When the oldest child, 10 year old Peter is tested, he is deemed unsuitable because of his cruel tendencies, his eight year old sister, Valentine is at the opposite end of the spectrum, but their younger brother, Andrew Wiggin – who calls himself Ender – is just right and the kind of person that the military considers pliable.

Peter abuses Ender all the time, and takes pleasure in abusing animals, watching their slow death. Peter is capable of killing, so Ender and Valentine are afraid of him. The military takes six year old Ender from his family to train as a soldier. Going away with the military enables Ender to be far away from Peter. Because of his size and age, older kids often terrorize him, and Ender soon realizes that he has to make a statement so others will not think that he is scared and fearful.

He also knows that he cannot ask his superiors to intervene on his behalf, and in many instances, they create the situations by showing others how superior Ender is because of his skills, intellect and honesty. Ender is forced to engage in violence, otherwise he will be killed. In one instance, he kills Bonzo, an adversary, but his superiors hide that fact from him.

His parents did not protect him from his older brother Peter, and while at battle school, those running the school do not protect him from the other students being trained there, instead they turn a blind eye to see how Ender will respond when pushed. Ender’s superiors manipulate him, and through his abusive training, he becomes a trained military genius, and expert at wielding violence against his enemies. However, he feels remorse for his violence, and questions his own nature and tendencies. But in the end, readers are assured that Ender is good, a victim hero.

Have you read?

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, Book Review

While reading Ender’s Game, time and time again, the readers gets a glimpse into Ender’s genius. What makes Ender so brilliant is that he doesn’t follow the status quo, which frees him to try new things, therefore he is constantly doing the unexpected. For instance, while training for the End of the World, while other groups have four platoons of 10, Ender, has five platoons of eight, which gives him an advantage during practice. Additionally, while other leaders practice a formation that everyone knows, Ender trains his team freestyle so others never know what to expect, then when it is necessary, he teaches them formations when no one is expecting it from the soldiers he is leading.

He is also very curious, so whenever he is playing a game, he tries different scenarios and paths to determine where it will lead him. Furthermore, Ender has great powers of observation, looking closely at the way things work. He is a sympathetic and pliable character who is fooled into believing that he is playing a game as a way to train for the invasion of Earth by the buggers, when in fact, it is the real deal and he annihilates the buggers.

When he learns the truth, Ender is remorseful, and hates what he has done. But while playing the game, he wins the ultimate victory when he decides to give up the enterprise. This is a poignant moment for me in the story because in life to get what you ultimately want, you often have to give up something that is important to you.

Ender seeks redemption for annihilating the alien race, and gets it when he finds a Queen bugger, which he hides. He wants to find an ideal spot where he can take the Queen so that she and her offsprings can inhabit without interference from human beings. Throughout the book, Orson Scott Card forces readers not to look at what Ender does, but his motives for doing them. Do you agree with this?

Five Great Ideas from Ender’s Game

1. Look at what people mean and not what they say.
2. Learn from others, even those you perceive to be your enemies.
3. Be flexible with your strategy.
4. Use your brain to out-think and outsmart others.
5. You become what you pretend to be, so be authentic.

Final Thoughts: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

The key themes in Ender’s Game are humanity, morality, salvation and redemption, and the book probes moral issues. Reading Ender’s Game (The Ender Quintet) by Orson Scott Card with today’s lens shows a harrowing tale of child abuse and bullying. It is a story about adults who fail to protect children, and bullies who get away with bullying others. It was an extremely difficult book to read.

I found the book so difficult to read that I decided that it would be the only one in the quintet that I would read. Although I found Ender's Game (The Ender Quintet) very difficult to read because of the child abuse and bullying, I found myself taking notes because the book is an excellent training course on strategy and tactics.

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