Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game One of the Best Sci-Fi Books Ever

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is a futuristic science fiction novel that takes place in the year 2070. The human race is intensely nervous after two attacks from a race of aliens called "buggers." Out of an act of desperation, the government begins to draft brilliant kids who pass a series of complicated tests of both intelligence and character. They are sent to battle school - an orbiting school for training only the most clever of children, in hopes of finding the one who will save the world during the Third Invasion. At the frail age of six, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is already a genius among geniuses. He is pushed even harder than the rest of the children and is also brutally manipulated to become the urgently needed hero. The misconceptions that Ender has about the games lead to him doing things that he otherwise would never have done.

From the beginning, games form a crucial theme within the novel and as it progresses, the line between real life and the fantasy of games smudges into an obscure haze. The first game is "buggers and astronauts," a simple one-sided game which all the kids play and the buggers always lose. Ender's brother, Peter, forces Ender into playing. Ender can barely see out of the bugger mask as Peter knocks him to the ground, smothers his breathing by stepping on his chest, and hurls threats at him. "'I could kill you like this,' Peter whispered, 'just press and press until you're dead'"(12). Though the game isn't real, Peter's malice and the pain that he inflicts upon Ender is. Ender is eventually drafted to Battle School where there are two games: a fantasy mind game, and the war games in the battle room. The complicated fantasy game that not even the creators understand has a profound impact on Ender as it gives him mysterious and intricate insights into his own mind. His life begins to revolve around the war games, which transforms games from idle entertainment into a grueling and crucial aspect of life. Their scores and ranks determine their future and also lead to fierce jealousy and loathing towards Ender from many Battle School students. A boy attacks him one day in the shower, and Ender accidentally kills him in self-defense. Jealousy spawned by the war games turns into a real death. Ender he is sent to Command School after prematurely graduating Battle

School. There he plays the most important games of his life- simulations of the bugger wars to prepare him for Third Invasion. Unknown to him, the computer "simulations" are actual battles against the bugger fleets.

Ender's youth and naivety, which are assets as much as flaws, blind him from seeing that those final games are not merely games, but the actual Third Invasion. He is lied to from the beginning, and finally tricked into doing something he never would've done: exterminating an entire species. The stress of "the game" takes a toll on his health as it starts to tear him down both emotionally and physically. It also uses up all of his ambition, and he begins to have crazy nightmares that are much like the fantasy mind game. One night, he wakes up choking on his own blood from gnawing on his fist while asleep. His role as a commander has also forced him to be merely a distant leader to his friends. "As their trust in Ender as a commander grew, their friendship, remembered from the Battle School days, gradually disappeared" (282). His teacher, Mazer Rackham, the winning commander in the last invasion, continually tells Ender that he cannot quit because winning is everything. He also reassures Ender that the computer knows what it's doing, and the difficulty of the new simulations are only there to train him to his fullest extent. Ender and his squad gradually spend more and more time playing these games, up to ten hours a day. It makes him lonely and exhausted, but he doesn't stop. One day Mazer informs him that he was going to have his final examination in Command School, in front of a panel of judges. Ender is relieved to know that it's the end, at least, until he sees the screen. He is tremendously outnumbered and doesn't even want to play until he decides that he would rather beat an unfair battle rather than be beaten unfairly: "Forget it, Mazer. I don't care if I pass your test, I don't care if I follow your rules. If you can cheat, so can I. I won't let you beat me unfairly - I'll beat you unfairly first" (293) and wins the battle by destroying the planet that the enemy lived on. Through the perfect manipulation of Ender, the adults of the novel were able to use him to defeat the buggers. They had to make it seem like a game because Ender never hated the buggers and would've never consciously fought that battle, much less blown up their home planet.

When finally being told the truth about the recent games, instead of rejoicing for the defeat of the buggers, Ender turned to anger and despair. "I killed them all, didn't I?… I didn't want to kill them all. I didn't want to kill anybody! I'm not a killer! You didn't want me, you [expletive deleted], you wanted Peter, but you made me do it, you tricked me into it!"(297). Ender's compassion is part of what surprisingly led to his defeat of the buggers. His understanding of his enemy helps him be victorious, but that same compassion also makes it hard for him to hurt anyone. He once said, "In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves"(238). After the war, instead of going back to earth as a hero for finishing off the buggers and saving mankind, he spends the rest of his life as the "Speaker for the Dead" and travels from planet to planet to tell the story of the buggers to anyone who is willing to listen. His compassion makes him seek redemption for the buggers.

The misconceptions that Ender has about the games lead to him exterminating the entire race of buggers. The most tragic thing is that he had absolutely no idea of what he was doing. He never meant to hurt anyone and only did what he did because of the brutal lies that he was told. Since there is no idealized, perfect good in this novel, Ender is the best a person can be, given the circumstances in which he finds himself.