Ender's Game

First, my thanks to Paul for this recommendation!

On with the book. I found that I have been enjoying it more than I thought I would. It rather reminds me, at least tangentially, of two other science fiction books about a young man's initiation into the military (Ender being exceedingly young, of course, but so also those with whom he is in training), Starship Troopers (Robert A. Heinlein) and The Forever War (Joe Haldeman), although it differs quite a bit from both and they from each other. Both of those I read for a science fiction literature course I took years ago in my undergraduate degree at the University of Ottawa.

In brief, Ender's Game is about a six year-old boy by the name of Andrew Wiggins, who always goes by the nickname 'Ender' bestowed upon him by his older sister Valentine. Ender is a supremely gifted boy who is being cultivated by the military to be the commanding officer they need to save them from a potentially destructive enemy, a race of insect-like beings referred to throughout the book as 'buggers'. Ender 'saves' humanity in the process of enduring what he believes to be simulated tests, but which are in fact him, and his cohorts, actually commanding or controlling Earth's fleets as they attack and defeat the enemy fleets and destroy the 'bugger' homeworld. Ender then goes off with his sister to colonise a 'bugger' world, and it transpires that the 'buggers' were attempting to communicate with him. Ender eventually becomes what he calls a 'Speaker for the Dead', which inspires a new religion.

I would have to re-read the two books I just mentioned, but, I found that I enjoyed this book more than I remember enjoying them. I might go so far as to say that Ender's Game is a better book than they, but since it has been so long since I read them, it would be best just to say that I enjoyed it.