Book Review: Ender's Game

Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card
Star Rating: 3.5 (out of 5)
Genre: Sci-fi, fantasy, dystopian
Pages: 324

Synopsis:

Once again, the Earth is under attack. Alien "buggers" are poised for a final assault. The survival of the human species depends on a military genius who can defeat the buggers. But who? Ender Wiggin. Brilliant. Ruthless. Cunning. A tactical and strategic master. And a child. Recruited for military training by the world government, Ender's childhood ends the moment he enters his new home: Battleschool. Among the elite recruits Ender proves himself to be a genius among geniuses. In simulated war games he excels. But is the pressure and loneliness taking its toll on Ender? Simulations are one thing. How will Ender perform in real combat conditions? After all, Battleschool is just a game. Right?

Thoughts:

I picked this book up because some of my friends told me it was worth the read. Usually they're right about good books. I wasn't quite so sure this time.

The setting was really cool. I loved that there was a battle school up in space with no gravity restricting things, and you could use different tactics and weapons to defeat your opponents in the games. It was interesting to see how Ender, who starts at age 6 I believe, worked his way up through the ranks as he won battles.

Orson Scott Card did a good job of using Ender's situation to make us sympathize with him and root for him during the book. He put Ender up against seemingly undefeatable forces and made us agree with the characters about the unfairness of it all.

You'll notice, however, that I didn't rate this book extremely high. I gave it what I felt was fair. The reason I didn't rate it super high was because I just didn't feel it sometimes. You know that feeling you get when you just connect with a book? There were parts where I didn't connect. Sometimes the plot felt weak, or it felt like there were some things in there that didn't serve much of a purpose but to explain the same thing again.

There definitely was some plot twists in this book that make me sit back in shock. I felt like there could've been more twists though. The plot twists that were present were huge, but I think that there could've been a few more in between the major ones.

I think part of the reason I didn't connect with the book was that sometimes it felt repetitive to me. Some parts lacked the action that I wanted from it. You need lulls in books to counteract the business, but I felt like sometimes there had to be some big bang in there to break it up.

The ending was a really nice wrap up to the whole book, and I just found out via some research that Ender's Game is part of a series of books. I don't think it's a series that follows exactly one after another, but I'm assuming it's either that or a few companion books. I'm still undecided if I shall read those.

That is all.