I emerged from the cinema blinking, the cold light of day burning my eyes, fresh air burning my lungs. That was several months ago. I haven't been to the cinema in a while but recently enough Ender's Game was released where I live and I recon I've hit the sweet spot where enough time has elapsed for the dust to have settled but for it to be still fresh in the memory of people that I can talk about it. You also may have guessed from the title that I'm reviewing the book "Ender's Game", not the film. I've seen both but I feel the book warrants more talking about (and I think I can get more material out of reviewing books that film as one habit is significantly cheaper to fund than the other). Let's dive in:
The basic premise is this, Earth has been invaded twice before by an alien race know as the "buggers" and in anticipation for a third invasion to wipe out all of humanity, the combined forces of Earth have launched a program to find the brightest young minds and train them to become commanders to defend the planet. I
Earth's greatest hope is Andrew "Ender" Wiggan, who is forced to leave home for "Battle School" to train in mock battles against fellow children as training for their future careers as soldiers.
If this is sounding somewhat cliched you have to remember this book came out in 1985, and all forms of science fiction media have been borrowing elements from it in one form or another ever since.
Basic premise aside, Ender's Game in my view is first an foremost about individual greatness. It's the almost archaic view that history is the study of great men and their actions transplanted into space. Ender has been bred to be great, every action he displays, no matter how mundane, shown to be an example of his superior intellect and understanding of the world.
Of course greatness has its drawbacks, the sword of Damocles is ever present. As a result of his "greatness" and gifted nature, Ender is subjected to severe isolation from the rest of the students. Even those he would view as being closest to him, don't view him as being fully their friend, he is not someone they can have fun with. This point is brought to the extreme as one student even tries to kill Ender. Furthermore, as the novel progress and Ender graduates from battle school, his greatness is recognised and this dangles the sword even closer to his head. Greater things are demanded of him and he is put through a relentless training program.
It's an interesting observation, that greatness, is ultimately not worth the rewards it brings. Total isolation from our peers and overly high expectation from those who do see our greatness push us to the brink, even to death.
Philosophical ravings aside, on a technical level the book is very good, maybe even great but by no means brilliant. The narrative is it's main selling point the story being incredibly compelling and with nearly ever chapter prefaced with dialogue spoken by persons unknown we're left guessing at to who's hidden agenda's are at play here. The portrayal of Ender's isolation is done phenomenally well as are the characters mental struggles. However, the books strengths are kneecapped by it's almost utter lack of pacing and mismanagement of it's sup plots. Chapters will take place over a few a few hours and then jump ahead several months almost as if the author devised the key plot points and moments of development and then stung them together with as little filler as possible. In addition to this, an entire sub plot regarding Ender's siblings plot to take over the world (I kid you not) is introduced, forgotten about and then brought up again once and then again at the end of the novel, in an overly stretched out denouement.
Overall, Ender's Game get's a recommendation, the author's personal opinions aside, it's a damn good read and great piece of modern science fiction. Check it out if you can.
Just more thoughts from nowhere.
Thanks for reading.
