Ender's Game

Author: Orson Scott Card
Pages: 368
Rating: PG, some mild language, some violence.

Summary:
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers, Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If the world survives, that is.

My Thoughts: I have NOT seen the movie, but I know they changed it quite a bit. This is just my review of the book. I really enjoyed reading it. I got sucked in right away and wanted to know what was happening next and how everything connected. The only thing that was difficult for me was that Ender is supposed to be 6 at the beginning, and although he does age throughout the book, for most of it, he's still under the age of 12. He is supposed to be a child genius, but I still struggled imagining him and his companions that young. I mainly imagined teenagers. I guess just because child warfare is so difficult to imagine.

Since I feel like I'm behind the 8-ball in reading this book, I don't know what else to say about it, only that it was original and different, and I think the argument was there for allowing children to be children, no matter how brilliant they may be.