I was savaged by a miniature poodle the other day--wait--no, someone protested my review of The Giver the other day. If you have any pent-up rage from that college lit teacher who forced you to think about books, be sure to stop by and spew some incoherent vitriol--my reviews are now a socially acceptable site of catharsis for the insecure.In any case, one of them made the argument that children need new versions of great books that are stupider, because children are just stupid versions of norm...

ender's game is pretty awesome, when it's not being boring.and of course it is just me - in class yesterday the parts i mentioned as being boring TO ME were other people's favorite parts. and this is all due to a design flaw in me: i am physically incapable of visualizing action sequences. in movies, they make it so easy. in books, i frequently have to reread scenes a few times before i can orient myself. throw in zero gravity and weapons that don't actually exist, and i am loster than lost.but

[I have a new website where I review awesome books & more! http://unlearner.com]I wanted to like Ender's Game. I really did. It's a wonder that even after more than halfway into the book, I still clung on to the foolishly optimistic notion that the book would somehow redeem itself. That it would end up justifying the tedious, repetitive, drearily dull chapters I trundled through over the course of several days (which is unusual, since I'm generally a fast reader).It pains me to say it, as a hard...

i think 'ender's game' is the only book i've read three times. for me books often don't have repeat reading value in the same way some movies have repeat viewing value. it's probably because a movie takes two hours of your time while a novel, for me, takes a week or longer. so for someone like to me read a novel twice, not to mention three times, is really saying something [and yes, i realize the inherent snobbery in that statement].i've thought long and hard about what makes 'ender's game' so a...

This has to be, hands down, one of the best science fiction books written. Ender's Game is set in a disarmingly straightfoward sci-fi setting: a near future earth threatened by a hostile alien species with superior technology that seems determined to destroy the human race. The story centers on a young boy who is drafted into an all-consuming military training program at the age of 6. The program he's inducted into seeks to forge a new generation of military commanders out of gifted children, a

Ender's Game (The Ender Quintet #1), Orson Scott CardEnder's Game is a 1985 military science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. Set at an unspecified date in Earth's future, the novel presents an imperiled mankind after two conflicts with the Formics, an insectoid alien species which they dub the "buggers". In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, children, including the novel's protagonist, Ender Wiggin, are trained from a very young age through increasingly difficult g...

This was a really good book. On its surface it is a great story about a young boy who goes through tremendous struggles. On another level it is a brilliant psychological character study and an observation of group dynamics. On still another level it was an intelligent allegory for violence and bellicosity in ourselves and our society. There is a listopia list that calls this the best science fiction novel. Mmmmm, maybe. I can see why someone would say so. I have heard where military organization...

This was the first book I picked up and read all the way through in one sitting. Technically, it's not a difficult read but conceptually it's rich and engaging."They have a word for people our age. They call us children and they treat us like mice."If you can't understand that statement, you probably won't like this book. It's about intelligent children. Not miniature adults- their motivations, understanding, and some-times naivete clearly mark them as children. But at the same time their intell...

I read this story decades back with no special expectations. Like most books I read it just happened to be lying around the house. I read it, was hugely entertained, and went on to read three or four of the sequels.I've heard since all manner of 'stuff' about the author but what's true and what isn't I don't know and I'm not here to critique the man behind the keyboard. All I can do is report on the contents of the book and those I can thoroughly recommend you check out.The main character, Ender...

Once upon a time, there was a tiny 6-year old boy who all the other kids picked on. Little did they know that he was very special and all the adults secretly loved him even though they didn't stop anyone from picking on him, and also he knew karate and he didn't want to hurt them but he would if he had to, and it just so happens that he has to. Often. Also he spoke and thought not like a 6-year old boy but as a smug 30-year old man with a fair amount of unresolved bitterness toward his childhood...

I read this novel because it was often the favorite novel of students of mine, and I wanted to understand why. I should mention that I love science fiction, and have read it avidly since I was barely more than a child. I'm not by any means some kind of anti-sci-fi snob.The first thing that bothered me is that the novel sets adults against gifted children in a way that strikes me as bizarre. Adults are essentially evil but teachers especially. The children are inherently excellent, capable of hel...

Polemical indeed BEST SCI-FI'S NOVEL CONTENDER? I decided to read the novel basically because the incoming film adaptation (it was "incoming" at the moment that I read the book) and I wanted to read the original book before of watching the film. I am aware of the controversial opinions about sensitive social subjects, but I want to keep that out of this and only commenting about my impressions about the book itself. First of all, I doubt highly that the film adaptation will be so crude in

Lots of people have already read this book, and it's pretty much universally acclaimed, so it probably doesn't really need another review. So I just want to point out one thing that bothered me both times I read it (with a decade at least in-between at that):Isn't it weird how much time the kids in this book spend naked? The entire time Ender is at Battle School, Card constantly tells us how everyone is always sleeping naked, or walking around the barracks naked or jogging naked. And one of the

This is a novel that blows past conventional ideas like "disbelief." Apparently humanity, a species whose only real claim to fame is war, now stinks at war, and can only be saved by a child genius who is one part prophecy, one part bad science, and one part wish-fulfillment. Thanks to this plan, we are treated to a gaggle of super-intelligent children who seldom appear particularly clever (in fact many behave with adult maturity rather than abnormal intellect) and achieve greatness not through a...

DNF at 52%Dear Orson Scott Card,There are over 3,310,480,700 women in this world.Sincerely, Women. Dear Fans of This Book Who Are Probably About To Make An Angry Comment On This Review:Please leave now if you don't want to get all huffy and insulted and make a comment defending the author or whatever other shit that is this book. Or, if you want, go ahead. If you're going to comment, at least read the whole review and not just a quarter of it. I'm so sick of repeating myself over and over in the...

“Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.”While I enjoyed Ender’s Game quite a bit (I think I’ve read it 3 times now), I first read it after reading Ender’s Shadow. This means I already had a take on how things went down at Battle School (and that was from Bean’s rather than Ender’s perspective). That said, I wholeheartedly recommend Ender’s Game not because I think it’s better than Ender’s Shadow (I don’t), but because Ender’s Saga is fantastic (esp...

Re-Read 2/18/22:This must be my 6th time reading this and I cried like a baby at certain parts all over again as if it was my first.More importantly, I read it with my daughter, so it WAS her first time. Say what you will about the author, he wrote a fantastically empathetic book that works on so many damn levels. And this time, my daughter and I both bawled our eyes out together.I'm so glad I can introduce her to a true love of SF. :)Original review:So nice to read it again. I suppose I can poi...

Spoiler Alert***God damn did I hate Ender’s Game. I checked out Amazon and can surely see why I wanted to give it a shot. Talk about a cult following of people absolutely smitten with it. I even read some where that it’s on the required reading list at Quantico. I suppose this book could be some kind of manifesto for misfit nerds who waste their life playing video games or a source of legitimacy for motivating tired Marines sick of drilling (The book rambles on infinitely about the boy genius En...

If I fail my exams this week, I blame this book.Ah Ender's Game, how you have sat on my bookshelf for over a year before I got to you. You have been so nicely received by the sci-fi community so why did I put you off? BECAUSE I WAS STUPID, THAT IS WHY.My stupidity aside, I hope you guys will still consider this 5-star review to be credible and valid. I'll list off the pros and cons to this novel and you can decide.Pros:An adorable main character. Ender (Andrew) Wiggins was a breath of fresh air

Hmmm, I find it hard to understand the level of following this particular book gets. Ender's Game is the type of sci-fi that doesn't interest me much. 225 pages about a boy playing video games, battling in zero gravity, and learning about how military works? I can work up some interest for these things, but there has to be some characters I care about. However, how exactly am I supposed to find compassion for a boy who goes from one task to another never failing and always being the best at EVER...