Book Report – Ender’s War

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is one of the books everyone tells me to read. A classmate first recommended it to me way back in high school, but I only got around to reading it just recently.

Against the backdrop of humanity’s long war against an insectoid alien species referred to as buggers, Ender’s Game tells an intimate story of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, perhaps humanity’s greatest military commander in fiction. Although a “genius among geniuses” and identified at early childhood as the future defender of mankind, Ender doesn’t have it all easy. In order to draw out his potential, his handlers subject him to isolation and intense conditioning and training, even to the point of real risk of physical and psychological harm. He rises above the challenges, of course, which I cannot help but compare to the other “The One” who is supposed to bring balance to the Force but turn to the dark side instead.

Ender’s strength, apart from his tactical genius, is his empathy. While fully aware of his capability, he is always fearful of his potential for cruelty. After unknowingly wiping out the whole bugger species by destroying their home planet, thus committing xenocide, he sets out to redeem himself by finding a surviving bugger queen cocoon a new home.

Wonderfully written, Ender’s Game won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards for Best Novel in 1985 and 1986 respectively.