Ender's Game

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, is a very well-written book. It's a good science-fiction novel, and a fun ride. Card is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors: he crafts well-constructed characters, puts them into a consistent world, and makes them come to life. Even in a setting that I normally wouldn't be captured by, I was totally lost in the story and really enjoyed seeing how it all came together.

Ender's Game is about a boy named Ender who has anything but a normal childhood. He's born on Earth in an era of strict population control: every family is allowed two children, tops. Except in certain circumstances, such as Ender's. Ender, you see, is really Andrew Wiggin, and he's a "Third". Thirdborn in his family, completely out of place and knowing it.
He is also, apparently, an off-the-charts genius and master strategist, even at age 6.
At age 6, the government comes for him and takes him to Battle School, where he learns how to first be a soldier, then a platoon leader, then a commander, and on up the chain of command. Ultimately he becomes the strategist and commander for the entire army as they go up against "the buggers" - an alien race that would annihilate the Earth (and had tried twice already).
Ender winds up commanding the fleet to destroy the Buggers at their homeworld, and there is Much Rejoicing. I have no real problem giving away the ending, because the book really isn't about the ending - it's about Ender and his journey to the ending of the story.

The thing I had the biggest problem with was Ender's age. At age 6 he is taken to Battle School and trains to become a soldier. By the time he's commanding the entire space Fleet he's the ripe old age of eleven. Come on. Nobody in that army has any genius? Nobody has any strategic capabilities? Nobody can command? With all the adults that were perfectly capable of outwitting, outsmarting, and manipulating Ender throughout the entire book, I would think that they'd also be able to aim their strategizing, their smarts, their wits, and their manipulations toward the Fleet.
Watching the story unfold the way it did was a bit...unbelievable. The adults were necessarily both incredibly stupid (because an entire world of them couldn't produce one capable military commander, so they had to resort to an eleven-year-old) and incredibly intelligent and crafty at the same time (because they also had to be able to manipulate said eleven-year-old into doing what they wanted). I just couldn't quite believe that.
However, in the end, of course, everyone gets what they want. Except, of course, for the buggers.
The book has a couple chapters of post-bugger narration, as well. Amusingly, it reads almost as though Card thought at the last minute that he should put some sort of "Postlude" in the book, and hastily wrote something. After a book that carefully, meticulously narrates every highlight, every important event in Ender's life for 5 years, suddenly we get the next fifty years or so in a chapter. Sort of a fleshed-out version of "and they lived happily ever after."

Card does something very few authors can easily get away with. He breaks the "fourth wall" of storytelling, but it's in a very subtle manner. References to Ender's age are dropped in very frequently. I believe it was done deliberately, to keep the reader from getting comfortable with "Ender-the-soldier" as just "Ender the soldier". As long as it's just "Ender-the-soldier", we can pretend that Ender's already Of Age; that he's really 18, or 20, or 50. And it's not like it's a huge pretense. It's an assumption that we naturally make: that 6-year-olds aren't soldiers, they're not master strategists - they're children. Card keeps mentioning Ender's age, not because the story or the characters require it (and they don't), but because I think he wants to keep the reader a little bit on edge; a little bit uncomfortable. Once you're off-balance a little bit, it's easier to slip in more unbelievability (such as the entire "adults are incredibly stupid and incredibly clever at the same time" mentioned above). I don't believe that's the only reason he did it, though. Card just seems to enjoy looking at things in a slightly different manner, and at a slightly different angle, and he wants the reader to do so as well. He's an excellent writer who succeeds very well at keeping the reader off-balance, and at forcing our perspective to a different angle.

Well done. 4 out of 5 bones.