I always loved the bit where Valentine as “Demosthenes” and Peter as “Locke” write manipulating political commentary. I love that while they are manipulating the masses, they are also manipulating each other. The mind games are just brilliant.
Okay, so I’m listening to my iPod today, and the following plays. As I listen, I’m struck by how clearly I can hear various Ender’s Game voices weaving in and out of the lyrics. It’s been a while since a book has entered my consciousness as completely as this one. I was sorry to say goodbye.
Read and tell me if you hear it too. (And if you think I’m full of craaaap, well I guess you can tell me that too)
“Better Days” by The Goo Goo Dolls
And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just the chance that maybe we’ll find better days
Cause I don’t need boxes wrapped in strings
And designer love and empty things
Just the chance that maybe we’ll find better days
So take these words and sing out loud
Cause everyone is forgiven now
Cause tonight’s the night the world begins again
I need someplace simple where we can live
And something only you can give
And that’s faith and trust and peace while we’re alive
And the one poor Child who saved this world
And there’s ten million more who probably could
If we all just stopped and said a prayer for them
So take these words and sing out loud
Cause everyone is forgiven now
Cause tonight’s the night the world begins again
I wish everyone was loved tonight
And that someone might stop this endless fight
Just the chance that maybe we’ll find better days
So take these words and sing out loud
Cause everyone is forgiven now
Cause tonight’s the night the world begins again
Cause tonight’s the night the world begins again
Lady D,
I can’t speak to your Ender’s Game / Better Days link, but I completely identify with the concept…One summer I was given “I Am Legend” to read by my dad, in my early teens, and a song I’ll always connect with the book is Sundown by Gordon Lightfoot…he was getting alot of airplay that summer…and the lyrics spookily seem to fit the book. (yikes I just looked it up and it was 1974 !!! I was eleven.)
In regards to Ender’s, I can’t help but admire the truly innovative (to me in any case) training that Ender and the kids performed. They were using their own bodies as representations of spacecraft and fighting groups, in a three dimensional venue, learning to maneuver, organize, and fight, on a scale which would be accepted by their minds. The really cool aspect is that this training seamlessly translated to real battles with starships and fighters on a galactic scale ! I found this aspect of the story quite cool.
…Which is why for me, I stuck with the Bean/Shadow series. What happened on Earth post-Hive felt more meaningful to me than the colonization.
I agree on the choice of reading. A quick skim of Amazon seems to support this position.
When I have loaned out my copy of Ender’s Game the standard response is, “My god that was great! I am going to go by Speaker for the Dead immediately!” to which I respond:
NO
Simply put, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind are very different novels. I found them utterly impenetrable. I would read pages and pages without anything sinking in. I thought I was going out of my mind…how could a book that I considered to be a masterpiece be related to these books?
I could never get past that the books read like 1,000 pages of apology for the actions in Ender’s Game of destroying a civilization. The books to me felt like a sermon from a beloved pastor that wasn’t true to himself.
Thank god for Bean. I had given up hope and left the books to fester on my bookshelf when I heard that Card was picking up the story again. “Oh no” I thought…here we go again.
I was thankfully very wrong. Ender’s Shadow resonated with me from the first page. Back were the plots that I had so enjoyed. This book took a counterpoint Rosencrantz and Guilderstern-esque view of Ender’s Game that was very well executed. The follow-up novels only build on this new strength Card has found. I see from various box sets available out there other’s agree with me on this. Ender’s Game is now packaged with Ender’s Shadow and follow up novels.
Solai, I could totally understand how those books might not do it for you, but I actually did run out and get them after reading 'Game (on the recommendation of a friend) and ended up liking 'em quite a bit. They’re indeed very different than 'Game, but in many ways you get to see a whole lot more depth in the characters. 'Game always rings to me as a short story, even in the expanded version we read. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s great to see who everyone really is.
I suppose it also appeals a bit to my suspicion that most characters in action stories walk off into a life sorta like Ender’s after I close the book. Know what I mean?
That is a really interesting perspective Chuck. I will admit that I walked into those books expecting more of what I expected from Ender’s Game. When that expectation wasn’t met I put them aside.
I’ll give them another shot based on your recommendation. All those who I know who had read them had agreed with my perspective which is why I never went back to them. Now I have a reason. Thank you!
hey everyone! Orson Scott Card will be at the ASU Writers’ Conference next week.
ASU Writers Conference—Desert Nights, Rising Stars
February 20-23, 2008
Nightly Readings
Wednesday, Feb. 20
Jim Daniels & Dinty W. Moore
Thursday, Feb. 21
Denise Duhamel & Rick Moody
Friday, Feb. 22
Michael A. Stackpole & Orson Scott Card
Saturday, Feb. 23
Louise Glück
Nightly readings are open to the public * Admission: $10 at the door
Advance tickets available until Tuesday, Feb. 19 at 480-965-6018
For more information about the conference, or to download a registration form, visit www.asu.edu/piper/conference.
I love Enders game. I heard there making into a movie maybe, if you like the book like i did they made a comic book series it s awsome.:)
I totally agree with you Solai. I really didn’t like the Ender books after the first one but I absolutely love the Bean books.
i have to agree with both of u… while i did manage to force the other books in my mind… enders game was by far the best, and the easiest read… all of the been books are great also, but has anyone read ender in exile?? im told its pretty awesome?? any thoughts?
it was awsome it explained alot what happened during between ender’s game and speaker for the dead .
I loved Speaker For the Dead for totally different reasons than I loved Ender’s Game…Xenocide was okay, but Children of the Mind totally jumped the shark. But SFTD had a depth, a maturity, to it that expanded on the youthful nature of EG, and enrichened my experience of EG when I reread it. And the plot, while anthropological instead of political/martial, was still just as good. It’s a shame the last two books dissolved into metaphysical/philosophical drivel. But I was glad to fall in love with the series again with Ender’s Shadow.
Children of the Mind they can total make another book and maybe heal bean and his kids becase they got gentic diese 
Getting into this a little late I guess… but this book and myself are old old friends… I read Enders Game way back when in 1986… Have re-read the novel over and over… its one of those books that is easy to re-read…
Andrew “Ender” Wiggins… Third… Ultimate Tool… Dr Device personified…
Lots of morally ambiguous questions come out of this book… Ender was shaped to be a weapon… and like most weapons, he hurt people… Humans, Buggers it didnt matter… he did what he had to do to win… made sure his tormentors never hurt him again… does that make him evil? he’s not quite the “Heroic” figure that many make him out to be…
I am also entering this discussion a bit late, but I recently read Ender’s game and I loved it (in fact, I would say it is one of the best sci-fi books I have ever read). However, I have found one small, yet bothersome detail; that is, the underlying implication that boys are stronger, smarter, and overall better than girls. I found this to be completely unacceptable as girls should be just as valued as boys in the “IF” as well as in our modern world, as supposed male superiority and female minority continues to be a large factor in current society.
To begin with, Ender is a boy. Of course, almost twenty percent more of all books have a male lead rather than a female one, so this is understandable. Perhaps the author, being male, was more able to connect with Ender, or maybe because he based the character on his son and his characteristics. The author, I suppose, had no reason to make his main lead a girl and so stuck with a boy as this is what he is used to.
Following the main male lead, however, come his siblings, Peter and Valentine. The boy, Peter, displays extremely dangerous and violent behavior. Overall, he is the exaggerated “definition” (but who’s? The general public, it would seem) of a boy: angry, strong, and violent. On the other hand, his sister Valentine is the exact opposite, displaying yet again exaggerated “girl” characteristics: being soft-spoken, emotional, and generally submissive. While not all boys are violent and not all girls are submissive, the truth of it is that boys in general are physically stronger where girls are generally physically weaker. So I understand why the author chose to give Ender’s siblings these characteristics. However, just as it is generally accepted that boys are usually physically stronger than girls, it is also widely accepted that girls are smarter and more logical than boys. But the author did not let Valentine have one of her best qualities as he did for Peter (assuming that being physically strong and intelligent is good). Instead, he made them of equal intelligence, perhaps even suggesting that Peter is the smarter one as it is he who always gets his way and it is he who ends up with a treaty indirectly named after him. So while I understand why the author chose to write these characters in this way, I do not completely agree.
When Ender enters Battle School, the characters introduced are boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, boy until finally: Petra! She shows promise of being a strong female lead, confident with herself and her abilities even being outrageously outnumbered by boys. However as the story progresses, we see that she really isn’t as strong as we are led to believe. She is emotional and cries easily, and that isn’t bad, except that Petra, the girl is the only person breaking down so openly. If you read Ender’s Shadow, the companion novel, you would know that it is she who cries over the death of Poke (yet another girl to give the appearance of being strong and confident, yet end up “girly”: emotional, too trusting, and then ultimately dead £unlike£ her male companions). And as the story ends, it is she who finally cracks under the pressure and falls asleep in the middle of the battle, and it is she who the author focuses on as having the most emotional and tear filled breakdown as the truth about the games they were playing is finally revealed. Breakdowns like this are completely normal and I have no problem with them (I usually love them as they help the reader grasp a deeper understanding of who the character really is), but why her? Why not Bean, a clearly overworked young boy who should be even less capable of handling stress and fatigue than a girl? Why not Crazy Tom, who we already know is a bit insane and prone to violent fits and breakdowns? Or even Dink? No, it has to be Petra because she is a girl and we all know that girls are more likely to become emotional and pass out and cry, right?
And why is it that through the course of this book, we hear only the name of one girl in Battle School, Petra. Doesn’t it make more sense that there should be more girls than boys at the school as girls, as studies have proven; they are overall smarter than boys, especially when they are young children. And in a school where Ender so clearly excelled despite being smaller and younger than the other boys, wouldn’t it make sense that girls should thrive? Now that I think about it, I can’t recall reading about a single female captain or toon leader aside from Petra.
Maybe I’m just reading into this too much. Maybe I’m just being a whiny, feminist girl. But the boys, for no apparent reason, outrageously outnumber the girls at “Battle School”, when, in reality, the opposite should be true. And this is entirely unacceptable.
The author should recognize this problem and acknowledge it, in future books or short stories. Maybe he could even write a novella from Petra, or for that matter, from any girl in this storyline’s point of view. Either way, he needs to realize that we girls are just as strong as you boys. We can do anything you can do better; backwards and in high heeled shoes, too!
I know that this is by far, too long, but I feel very strongly about this topic and think that other people should notice it as well.
Hi, and welcome alexandra.the.great If you feel comfortable doing so, feel free to take yourself over to the Un-Official Introduction Thread to introduce yourself!
As much as I loved reading Ender’s Game, I too find the gender politics of the whole thing disturbing (and what I recall of the later books it’s a bit off as well). My dislike may also be colored by my intense dislike of the author’s personal politics, too, but thanks for pointing out the gender imbalance in the novel itself. There is more that could be said about Petra and Valentine in the light of the later books/series, but for now I’ll just say, there’s more that could be said about gender roles in OSC’s books.
Welcome to the Forum, Alexandra! Wonderful first post.
When I first read the novel, I never noticed the whole gender roles issues. Probably because I’m a male. Once I had daughters and I re-read some of the sci-fi classics in the hope of sharing them. I realized how male-centric they are. Another series I was hoping to share was the Foundation series yet it is a culprit of sexism as well.
I asked Casilda, our resident book maven, for suggestions for my daughters since they do enjoy fantasy and sci-fi. She pointed me to the Amelia Bloomer Project. Also she suggested the Earthsea series by Ursula LeGuin. I haven’t been successful introducing anything to them yet. They are engrossed in Winx Club and Pokemon at present.
What a first post! Welcome to the community, Alexandra!
I think Foundation suffers a bit due to the time it was written. Back then, girls WERE (in fiction) the weaker ones, to be saved by their male counterparts. And that’s if they were even included at all.
Ender’s Game doesn’t have that same caveat. It came out in 1985 between Aliens and Star Wars (And Princess Leia, for all her kick-assery, WAS one of only two women in the first movie, and the only one who survived the whole thing).
I try very hard to overlook an author’s (and actor’s) politics when reading (watching) their work. I was able to do this with Ender’s Game, and it never even occurred to me in Foundation. I think, frakkintalos, that your daughters would benefit from reading both series, and you could even discuss with them how funny it is that the girls in the books have such a minor role, when we KNOW these days that that’s totally not true. Then show her Starbuck beating the crap out of Apollo in the boxing ring
And you never know. I gravitated away from those books as a kid because I didn’t like that there weren’t realistic characters that I could identify with (read: women!), and instead found lots of books that I treasure that affirmed that someone like me could be the hero. I returned to the other books as an adult, and enjoyed them for what they are, even though I recognize that I am not the target audience (even though I think I should be!). Long story short, offer many options and let the kids muddle through to find what speaks to them.