GreyDoor

Six-year-old Andrew ‘Ender’ Wiggin is a Third. On an Earth where most countries practice population control, couples are allowed to have only two children. Only very special circumstances allow the birth of a third. Ender is such a child. Both his older brother and sister are as mentally gifted, but his brother is a psychotic and his sister is too pacifistic. Only Ender possesses those traits in just the right balance. In the past, Earth had been at war with the “buggers”, an alien insectoid race more properly known as the Formics. The Earth managed to win two such wars, but the military believes that the buggers are massing again for a third and final war, and this time the humans will lose unless they can find that one individual with the mental and emotional ability to lead their space army to victory…to destroy the buggers once and for all. To that end, the military has created a Battle School on an orbiting space station, and all mentally gifted male children aged six and over are sent here to learn how to become soldiers. Ender Wiggin is sent there as well. Through their scanning devices, the military knows everything about Ender, and believe that he is the one who can save humanity, if they can only control events in such a way that he learns what he needs to learn… Ender’s Game starts out in brutal fashion. Ender has just had a monitor device removed from the back of his neck – a device that had allowed people at his school to monitor him at all times and come to his aid if necessary. Without the monitor, he is just another kid…but still a Third. Still someone to pick on because he’s different (in this case, more intelligent than everyone else.) A gang of boys surrounds him after class, and Ender, although six years old, has the mental capacity of an adult. He analyzes the situation, and decides to fight back, by brutally beating the leader of the gang (whom he catches by surprise, attacking before the other boy had finished threatening.) At home, he in turn is attacked by his own brother, Peter, who is also jealous that he failed the monitoring program (the precursor to Battle School). Peter makes some very chilling threats, and that particular section is so unpleasant that some readers might be tempted to stop right there. I persevered however, and was glad I did because I enjoyed the rest of the book immensely. Ender had not flunked out of the program…it had been a test. He had beaten up the bully leader not out of psychoticness (to coin a term), as Peter would have done, but out of logic, knowing that it was the only thing he could do to prevent himself from being bullied in future. We follow Ender in his progression through Battle School, in which he and the hundreds of other boys (and one girl) there play wargames – but with a purpose. As Ender learns how to lead his classmates, and how to kill, his brother and sister back on earth have plans of their own. The title Ender’s Game is significant on many levels. Andrew Wiggins, as the Third child, is an Ender – his parents will have no more children. To the military, he’s an Ender – they except him to be able to end the war with the buggers forever. Then there’s the chess connotation, “End game” – that part of the game where one opponent proceeds to dismantle the other with precision. Then again, the military is playing games with Ender, in their attempt to turn him into the leader they need. The boys are playing military games with each other, as they learn to be soldiers, in order to save humanity. It is only to the Formics, the buggers, that, alas, this is not a game.

The popular opinion of science fiction is that it tends to be futuristic and entirely speculative, where the premise of creative advances in science and technology take centre stage and character development is often relegated to a supporting role. In Ender's Game, however, Orson Scott Card defies his own genre and shows that scientific speculation, alien species and human character development does not need to be mutually exclusive. He intelligently explores a perfectly valid premise while still portraying a heartrendingly humane side of the protagonist. Ender's Game is set in a future time on earth when our planet is under attack by an alien race. In this futuristic society, children are trained by the military from the tender age of three years old and groomed to become military commanders. Under siege by the aliens, the military is desperate to find a capable leader to helm the war against the enemy. The main character, Ender, is one of these children trained by the military and he is very good at playing strategic battle games. In the face of war, he is confronted with the grim decision of leaving his family and his beloved sister Valentine to fulfil his duty to humankind. Orson Scott Card tells an intensely dramatic story with twists and turns every step of the way. There are futuristic alien species for the hardcore sci-fi fans; for readers who appreciate human drama, there is Ender's realistic personal struggle as he grows up and faces his destiny. There are also some fascinating underlying themes in this story, such as the nature of child psychology and military training. The scenes of social interaction in a war-stricken environment strike an interesting and resounding chord with the survival strategies we see in the competitive world we live in today, eloquently showing that sci-fi is not that "out there" as many people may think.