Book #19: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

This book has literally been on my list of books to read for YEARS. I really can't believe I never came across it when I was younger! It definitely seems like something I would have enjoyed a lot when I was a tween. And also, I can't believe that I didn't even have a science fiction category here on this blog . . . I guess I don't really read science fiction that much (which I wouldn't have thought if you'd asked me!). But anyways, I FINALLY read Ender's Game, after meaning to forever, and I am proud of myself.

The whole plot of the book is fascinating, let's be honest. Ender and a bunch of other kids taken to this far-away school to teach them battle strategies in a zero-gravity environment for the purposes of training them to be the future leaders of the world space military. I can see why, for kids, this would be a fun read. (Not saying this is just a kids' book, but it's kind of like Harry Potter--you get plucked away to do this prestigious other school.) It was pretty neat to read about how Ender develops into becoming the best at everything and how his brain works faster at figuring out the solutions to all the problems thrown at him.

But okay, here's the thing. I think I would have liked this book better if I hadn't seen the movie first, a few months ago! I feel like it kind of ruined it for me, to know exactly what was coming. After having seen the movie first, I just kind of read haphazardly, looking for something interesting and new, but it seemed like they really followed the plot of the book very closely for the movie. As a result, I honestly can't say I loved this book. And I'm not dying to read any more Ender's books. One thing that kind of bugged me (and Card even addresses this in his introduction to the book) is that all the children in the book (Ender and all the other kids at Battle School) are not children. They don't talk like them or think like them or do anything childlike at all--and the book starts when Ender is six! In the movie, he's 11 or 12 ish the whole time, which is still unbelievable enough for the responsibility they put on him, but plucking him up when he's 6? I'm so confused by why the story has to happen that way. And I was never really convinced as to why they gave all the controls and the future of the world over to a bunch of kids. Sure, he may have been a prodigy, but why would that idea have come up in the first place? I don't think the reasoning there was strong enough to be believable. Additionally, I am pretty disturbed by how Ender killed the two boys who were trying to beat him up. I mean, it was an accident, sure. But why is he allowed to just get away with these things without anyone getting him in trouble? Because he's the universe's last hope, so we can't bust up his peace of mind, so we won't even let him know that those kids died or get him in trouble for it. But that's not really how the world works, and I don't think that's how it should work at all--nobody should be exempt from certain rules, like: don't kill people. But I'm sure these annoyances are pretty common in critiques of Ender's Game so I don't have anything too original to say.