Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

In my attempt to complete all the series I've started, I realize that also applies to series I started what is now nearly a decade ago. I had got this autographed by Orson Scott Card during an author event in 2013. His speech was excellent, and he really motivated me to read the entire Ender saga. However, life. I don't think I was in the right mindset, no matter how motivated I was, to fully soak up all this series offers. I enjoyed Ender's Game but was flummoxed by Speaker for the Dead. After a lackluster reread of "His Dark Materials," I was really going into this with some trepidation.

Fortunately, Ender's Game was even better than I remember it. The first read was entertaining, but the reread I was in the right headspace to absorb the story, the lesson, the meaning. This one really hit close to home. I know someone that has the heart and soul of Ender. I am much more motivated to see where this series goes now.

This is a late 80s sci-fi saga about kids in space. The world is at devastating war with an alien race that far outnumbers us. The top military tacticians are loosing and getting too old to strategize with this highly coordinated force. They do the only logical thing possible. They recruit prodigy children for their Battle School. These children will spend the next 6 years training to be military geniuses in order to become the commander of the entire military fleet.

The great strategy doesn't pan out, however, and they have to genetically engineer some children. Peter, fail. Valentine, fail. Third times the charm, and they get Ender Wiggin. Boy genius who enters Battle School at the tender age of 6 after proving his brutality and compassion in the same moment. 

The complexity of character moral development is real. The relationship between the characters is raw. Peter Wiggin terrifies me. Valentine unsettles me. Card brilliantly writes genius children. Their intelligence competes with adults, but they are still bound by the hormonal development of children. You really interact with the character's personalities. 

This is great showing in the sci-fi genre, futuristic concepts that hit close to the truth and are rather unnerving. This book is brutal and painful, but it has a lot to teach about the struggles of growing up in a world that has some pretty unrealistic demands. I love it, and I hope you will too.