8/29
The Book: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
ISBN: 0-812-55070-6
Suggested By: Audrey Scott
Where: Home
When: 6-630P
Music: None
Company: Alone
Pages: 278-324 (55)
The Lead In: I was poisoned. After finding out some of the less appealing aspects of the author, I didn’t enjoy the book as much. I have to say, the ending was weird....Well, more on that next.
The 411 on the 55: On the asteroid training base, Ender has to play complicated games fighting against his trainer, a veteran of the original bugger wars. With his crew of friends, Ender wins each battle, but is losing his health as the wars continue. Losing sleep, blacking out, losing the desire to eat, finally he is brought in for the last battle. And, oh, you guess it? He wins.
And guess what? It was actually real battles he was fighting, he was commanding ships already at the bugger universe. They are all wiped out, hooray, Ender is the best.
The resolution? Ender’s brother is now running the show on Earth, using his persona, Locke, that he created in writing on the Nets. Valentine bails on him and joins Ender at the asteroid. Because all the buggers are dead, their worlds are available for colonization and humans are rolling out, including Valentine, who talks Ender into it, as well.
Once on the bugger world, Ender is traveling around, discovers a building built out of his memories, by the buggers. There he is greeted with a large bunch of memories not his own. Flooded with memories of the buggers, and given a pupa to protect (to eventually release on a future bugger world), he writes a book about the bugger race. It becomes a religion and influences people all across the universe, the end.
The 20/20: So the book was marginal at best. I didn’t enjoy the ending, I felt that it was a bit underwhelming. It should have ended with Ender killing the buggers. Instead it dragged on for 30 pages of heart-tugging (or at least attempted heart-tugging) about buggers. I would have like the book better had it ended with Ender losing and the buggers ruling Earth. Now that would be a twist!
Line of the Day: “And always Ender carried with hi a dry white cocoon, looking for the world where the hive-queen could awaken and thrive in peace.” pg 324 Cheese.
Fact on the Fiction: You know, you read something like, “Ender’s Game is in the top 100 novels of all-time” and you think “Really?” After going to the link you find it was all voted on by “regular” people rather than experts and Ayn Rand and L Ron Hubbard take up has 7 of the top 10 ten spots. Spare me. Do check out the Board’s list, though. MLA
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