Paz on 2/11/2006 at 22:50
Haha, I can't really top that.
A few thoughts anyway. Firstly, I whizzed through this book - which is extremely unusual for me, so that's some kind of plus. I think the strongest sections were in SPACE SCHOOL, where the plot was essentially the same as all those English classics about kids in boarding school. You have the main character, his nerdy/burly/sarcastic friends, his NEMESIS and a jolly romp is had by all with the hero naturally emerging victorious. Good, clean, wholesome fun.
Actually, it's more like a bunch of those stories in miniature, because Ender keeps being moved around the "armies" so much. This allows the helpful introduction of various other characters, but they all still fit into the same kind of boxes; so you've got Ender + chums vs the baddies of the moment.
The sub-plot with Peter and Valentine and their wacky internet antics was rather tedious in comparison and felt a bit unnecessary, really. Also, the ending dragged horribly after the Buggers are defeated and went into SHIT MODE when Ender + Val went on their space colony jaunt and it rushed through all the OMG THE SCENARY FROM THE GAME IS ON THIS PLANET stuff. As well as aging everyone by 30 years in ten minutes or whatever. I appreciate this was probably to set up other books in the series though.
HOWEVER, the sub-plot did allow me to pull an overall theory out of my arse. Namely, that the theme of the piece (other than the aforementioned victimisation angle) is that war can only be avoided with communication. The Buggers turn out to be sort of fine, but war results due to a lack of communication between them and earth. Meanwhile, on earth, even though Peter is a nasty bastard he can manipulate a kind of peace through communication. So HOORAY FOR WORDS, etc. It's a bit flimsy, but there you go.
The continual references to farts and farting and EATING A BOTTLE OF FARTS entertained my childish side.
d0om on 3/11/2006 at 16:59
With the "internet shenanigans" as Paz puts it, the book was published in 1985. I think the descriptions of essentially internet forums seems moderately advanced thinking compared to other Scifi being written at the time.
Parallels between "the game" and MMORPGs are vaguely interesting though. I don't think people are using MMORPGs to monitor and profile people mentally though...right?
Paz on 3/11/2006 at 17:07
I quite clearly said "antics"!
That's a good observation though. While reading, I quite happily switched into "oh, so that's the future form of internet then" mode ... without really taking on board that INTERNET was probably fairly unknown(?) at the time.
In fact, that makes those sections a little less stupid. I was having a hard time believing that online discussion had somehow elevated to the level of being taken very seriously indeed by world powers.
Also, I never really understood how Peter, Val and Ender were all at least as intelligent as the finest political/scientific/blah minds of the day. Except THEY JUST ARE, OK. And maybe something about "a good combination of genes."
d0om on 3/11/2006 at 17:38
In the prequel/sequel whatever it is revealed that "Bean" is some sort of super-intelligent child via a shady lab performing genetic experimentation.
This book was written a long long time after the original Ender's game though, so I don't know how much of it was planned then and how much invented afterwards.
I think Ender+Peter+Valentine were supposed to have been part of some sort of government breeding program to produce the perfect commander. It is alluded to anyway.
Marecki on 4/11/2006 at 02:09
There is in fact a short story written by Card and published together with recent editions of "Ender's Game", "Boy from Poland", which tells the story of father Wiggin in his youth. In short (and without spoiling too much, I hope), he was chosen for exactly the same task as Ender but refused; then the government people decided they can wait for him to have children on his own (not to mention help him so that he could), with John Paul's talent being apparently so exceptional that it was believed that with enough offspring it would produce another great potential commander in the next generation, one that would be much more within the grasp of powers that be.
Paz on 4/11/2006 at 13:23
From Poland ... "John Paul" ... special powers.
HMMM.
Stitch on 4/11/2006 at 16:08
To BEAR, ercles, Navyhacker006, Renzatic, RyushiBlade, theBlackman, and tungsten, i.e. everyone (but Marecki) who voted for this book:
WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?
Fringe on 4/11/2006 at 16:18
I hope I'm not breaking some sort of TTLG BOOK CLUB RULE by poking my head in and punting the discussion to someone else, but John Kessel wrote a (
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm) thorough critique that more or less reflects Morte's takedown.
I couldn't have said it any more eloquently or completely than he did, so I'll just cowardly link it TGGP-style.
tungsten on 4/11/2006 at 19:34
Shut up, Stitch. If you'd make a thread for each topic (voting, suggestions, discussion) people would find the thread they want to reply to.
But abot Ender's game: I posted a message today which seems to have been eaten by my lousy net-connection (or some other big bad thing).
What I tried to say was, that I enjoyed the book, but was disappointed about the following:
Card takes the "usual" (in fairytales) story of the nerdy, brainy underdog that gets teased and beaten by the brawny, stupid big guy but wins in the long run by using his brains... Card shifts this scheme onto those super-intelligent kids. What he ends up with is strange: one of the maybe 1000 most clever kids of ouf planet behaves in very stupid brawny ways... I can not believe, that among those elite-kids only Ender and Dink really see through the games and systems of the teachers. Only Ender is capable of analysing the battleroom fights and learn and invent new strategies. Come on, we're talking about the most intelligent kids of the world, at an age where kids are still very creative, are still trying to experience the world. And they should just behave like the most dumb brawler from a teenage-movie?
I liked how his brother and sister take over the world :thumb:
