Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
ATOM 2002
336 pages
I’ve never read this book before. Yeah, how a self-respecting SF/F fan can go about never reading Ender’s Game must be beyond comprehension. Somehow or other I managed to not read this book before; each time I was about to pick it off the shelf, something else distracted me. Sorry, Ender.
I think the most surprising thing about Ender’s Game is I found that I liked the book as much as I thought I would. It was one of those books that kept being shoved at me and I kept backing away in alarm — partly because I think I was being predisposed to like it. Dune had been another of those books. Don’t get me wrong — me and the Dune books, we get along, gigantic worms ruling the universe notwithstanding. I had expected the later books to be better, but they got worse in the end, yet I survived. It always makes me sad when I end up not liking a book as much as I wanted to.
I liked the most of the characters. I liked Peter and Valentine’s plotting, despite some of their discussions going over my head at times. I liked Bean — to which someone immediately replied I should read Ender’s Shadow. The battles — the games — that were staged at battle school made the first half of the book made me go on reading until late at night, at what happens after hooked me to go on reading until I finished the book. It was a surprisingly fast read. It took me one night, I think. One sleepless night. Starting books on weeknights is slowly becoming a bad habit.
I wish the writing was a bit better in some spots, though. Ender and Valentine’s relationship seemed a bit too forced — he loves her, but if Card hadn’t told us that, I wouldn’t have guessed. I don’t think it’s just because Ender’s just hiding his feelings (insert for whatever reasons here), because some of the other stuff makes me so sad, like how Ender is completely convinced he’s alone, and how sorry he is at the end, but his relationship with his siblings are just so . . . strange? I don’t know how to describe it. Card tells us Ender loves Val and Ender doesn’t want to turn into Peter, but I get nothing of that from Ender himself. I have curious hang-ups with sibling relationships, I know. It comes from being the eldest of six, I suspect.
Some of the dialogue made me wince. Partly it was the slang the kids used at the battle school; it sounded strange and forced. Some of the insults the kids used left me shaking my head — those made the dialogue seem even more strange.
There were other things I wanted to say about this book, but right now it slips my mind. (New resolution: write these things immediately. Seriously. Never mind the gaps. They won’t kill you, oh no.)
Now I have Speaker for the Dead and Ender’s Shadow on my to-read list. That list never grows shorter, does it?
.
Note to self: it’s Speaker for the Dead. For, not of. Geez, you’d think you’d get that right after the ending and all. :p
