"Ender's Game" review
Ender's Game
by: Orson Scott Card
3.5/5 stars
Hmmmm...This was... surprisingly thought-provoking, despite the fact that it was completely predictable. The book made no secret that Ender was the hope of the world, nor of how the teachers planned to isolate him and etc. The fact that the so-called final test was actually the final battle was entirely predictable (I was 99% sure when there were others in the room, and 100% sure as soon as the battle scenario was revealed). The fact that the buggars were no quite the threat that they seemed was obvious as well. I wish they'd spent more time on Locke and Demosthenes (Peter and Valentine and their political game).
I am left with one question--did Petra and Alai and Bean and all the rest of Ender's sub-commanders know that this was no game? Or was the trick played on them, too? I wonder about the actual spaceship commanders... some of them have been flying towards this planet for 50+ years, it seems. And suddenly, they are following the strategies layed out by a bunch of kids who are playing a computer game. And dieing. By the thousands. Since Ender Wiggins had no idea that there were real lives at stake. I wonder, if they had given him a few days to work on a strategy... genius that he is, maybe he could have come up with a battle plan that didn't sacrifice the vast majority of the fleet. Their blood is not so much on his hands as is it on those of Graff and Mazer Rackham and the others who knew what was going on.
Mostly Rackham, who also knew about the group mind and the fact that much of the war was about something as simple as a lack of common language. No attempts at peaceful communication were ever made.
That bugs me. A lot. So does that fact that Ender, for some reason, is just Oh-so-very smart in just the right ways. And will someone please explain to me that computer game and how it is the buggars managed to control it?
by: Orson Scott Card
3.5/5 stars
Hmmmm...This was... surprisingly thought-provoking, despite the fact that it was completely predictable. The book made no secret that Ender was the hope of the world, nor of how the teachers planned to isolate him and etc. The fact that the so-called final test was actually the final battle was entirely predictable (I was 99% sure when there were others in the room, and 100% sure as soon as the battle scenario was revealed). The fact that the buggars were no quite the threat that they seemed was obvious as well. I wish they'd spent more time on Locke and Demosthenes (Peter and Valentine and their political game).
I am left with one question--did Petra and Alai and Bean and all the rest of Ender's sub-commanders know that this was no game? Or was the trick played on them, too? I wonder about the actual spaceship commanders... some of them have been flying towards this planet for 50+ years, it seems. And suddenly, they are following the strategies layed out by a bunch of kids who are playing a computer game. And dieing. By the thousands. Since Ender Wiggins had no idea that there were real lives at stake. I wonder, if they had given him a few days to work on a strategy... genius that he is, maybe he could have come up with a battle plan that didn't sacrifice the vast majority of the fleet. Their blood is not so much on his hands as is it on those of Graff and Mazer Rackham and the others who knew what was going on.
Mostly Rackham, who also knew about the group mind and the fact that much of the war was about something as simple as a lack of common language. No attempts at peaceful communication were ever made.
That bugs me. A lot. So does that fact that Ender, for some reason, is just Oh-so-very smart in just the right ways. And will someone please explain to me that computer game and how it is the buggars managed to control it?