Ender's Game is a military science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card.
Set in Earth's future, the novel presents an imperiled mankind after two conflicts with
the "Buggers", an insectoid alien species.
In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, children, including the novel's protagonist,
Ender Wiggin, are trained at a very young age through increasingly difficult games including
some in zero gravity, where Ender's tactical genius is revealed.
The book originated as the short story "Ender's Game", published in the August 1977 issue
of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.
Elaborating on characters and plot lines depicted in the novel, Card later wrote additional
books to form the Ender's Game series.
Card released an updated version of Ender's Game in 1991, changing some political facts
to reflect the times accurately; most notably, to include the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the end of the Cold War.
Reception of the book has generally been positive, though some critics have denounced Card's
perceived justification of his characters' violence.
It has also become suggested reading for many military organizations, including the United
States Marine Corps.
Ender's Game won the 1985 Nebula Award for best novel and the 1986 Hugo Award for best
novel.
Its sequels, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind and Ender in Exile, follow
Ender's subsequent travels to many different worlds in the galaxy.
In addition, the later novella A War of Gifts and novel Ender's Shadow take place during
the same time period as the original.
Ender's Game has been adapted into two comic series.
A film adaptation of the same name directed by Gavin Hood and starring Asa Butterfield
as Ender was released in October 2013.
Card co-produced the film.
Creation and inspiration The original novelette "Ender's Game" provides
a small snapshot of Ender's experiences in Battle School and Command School; the full-length
novel encompasses more of Ender's life before, during, and after the war, and also contains
some chapters describing the political exploits of his older siblings back on Earth.
In a commentary track for the 20th Anniversary audiobook edition of the novel, as well as
in the 1991 Author's Definitive Edition, Card stated that Ender's Game was written specifically
to establish the character of Ender for his role of the Speaker in Speaker for the Dead,
the outline for which he had written before novelizing Ender's Game.
In his 1991 introduction to the novel, Card discussed the influence of Isaac Asimov's
Foundation series on the novelette and novel.
Historian Bruce Catton's work on the American Civil War also influenced Card heavily.
Ender's Game was the first science-fiction novel published entirely online, when it appeared
on Delphi a year before print publication.
Synopsis Humanity, having begun to explore the Universe
and master interplanetary spaceflight, has encountered an alien race known as the "buggers",
establishing a forward base in the asteroid Eros, who provoked two wars.
Despite political conflict on Earth between three ruling parties, a peace was established
and an International Fleet formed against the Buggers.
In preparation for the Buggers' return, the Fleet creates the Battle School: a program
designed to subject children with the best tactical minds to rigorous training.
Protagonist Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, though teased as a "Third" under a two-child policy,
is one of the school's trainees.
He has a close bond with his sister Valentine; but fears his brother Peter, a highly intelligent
sociopath.
After the IF removes Ender's monitoring device, presumably ending his chances of Battle School,
he mortally wounds a fellow student, Stilson, but is left unaware of doing so.
When explaining his actions to I.F.
Colonel Hyrum Graff, Ender states his belief that, by showing superiority now, he has prevented
future struggle.
Graff, on hearing of this, offers Ender a place in the Battle School, situated in Earth's
orbit, where Graff quickly isolates Ender from the other cadets, but encourages him
to continue training despite frustration, through communications from Valentine.
The cadets participate in competitive war simulations in zero gravity, wherein Ender's
innovations disrupt the standard operations.
Graff promotes Ender to a new army composed of the newest and youngest cadets, which Ender
leads to the highest prestige.
There, Ender fights Bonzo Madrid, a jealous commander of another army, outside the simulation,
and unknowingly kills him.
Under Ender's leadership, several of his current and former squad members form 'Ender's Jeesh'
that remain loyal to him.
On Earth, Peter Wiggin has used a global communication system to post political essays under the
pseudonym "Locke", hoping to establish himself as a respected orator and thence as a powerful
politician.
Valentine, despite not trusting Peter, publishes alongside him as "Demosthenes".
Their essays are soon taken seriously by the government.
Though Graff is told their true identities, he recommends that it be kept a secret, because
their writings are politically useful.
Command School Ender, now ten years old, is soon promoted
to Command School, skipping several years of schooling.
There, he is tutored by a former war hero, Mazer Rackham.
Alongside other training activities, Mazer sets virtual fleets under Ender's control
against Bugger fleets controlled by Mazer.
Ender adapts to the game and, as the simulations become harder, receives members of his Jeesh
as sub-commanders.
Despite this, Ender becomes depressed by the simulations, by his isolation from others,
and by his treatment by Mazer.
When told by Mazer that he is facing his final test, Ender finds his fleet far-outnumbered
by the Buggers and sacrifices most of his fighters to launch a Molecular Disruption
Device, capable of destroying the entire planet, intending to earn himself expulsion from the
school for his ruthlessness.
The Device destroys the planet and the entire Bugger fleet; but after the simulation ends,
Mazer informs Ender that this — and earlier skirmishes in the "simulator" — were not
simulation, but represented the actual I.F.
contingent and the Buggers' main fleet at their homeworld, and that Ender has terminated
the war.
Ender becomes more depressed on learning this and of the deaths of Stilson and Bonzo.
When he recovers, he learns that, at the end of the Bugger war, Earth's powers fought among
themselves.
He stays on Eros as his friends return home and colonists venture to other worlds, using
Eros as a way station.
Among the first colonists is Valentine, who apologizes that Ender can never return to
Earth, where he would become dangerous as used by Peter and other politicians.
Instead, Ender joins the colony program to populate one of the Buggers' former worlds.
There, he discovers the dormant egg of a Bugger queen, who reveals that the Buggers had initially
assumed humans were a non-sentient race, for want of collective consciousness, but realized
their mistake too late, and requests that Ender take the egg to a new planet to colonize.
Ender takes the egg and, with information from the Queen, writes The Hive Queen under
the alias "Speaker for the Dead".
Peter, now the Hegemon of Earth, requests Ender to write a book about him, which Ender
titles Hegemon.
The combined works create a new type of funeral, in which the Speaker for the Dead tells the
whole and unapologetic story of the deceased, adopted by many on Earth and its colonies.
In the end, Ender and Valentine board a series of starships and visit many worlds, looking
for a safe place to establish the unborn Hive Queen.
Critical response Critics have received Ender's Game well.
The novel won the Nebula Award for best novel in 1985, and the Hugo Award for best novel
in 1986, considered the two most prestigious awards in science fiction.
Ender's Game was also nominated for a Locus Award in 1986.
In 1999, it placed #59 on the reader's list of Modern Library 100 Best Novels.
It was also honored with a spot on American Library Association's "100 Best Books for
Teens."
In 2008, the novel, along with Ender's Shadow, won the Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors
an author and specific works by that author for lifetime contribution to young adult literature.
Ender's Game was included in Damien Broderick's book Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels
1985–2010.
New York Times writer Gerald Jonas asserts that the novel's plot summary resembles a
"grade Z, made-for-television, science-fiction rip-off movie", but says that Card develops
the elements well despite this "unpromising material".
Jonas further praises the development of the character Ender Wiggin: "Alternately likable
and insufferable, he is a convincing little Napoleon in short pants."
The novel has received negative criticism for violence and its justification.
Elaine Radford's review, "Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman", posits that Ender
Wiggin is an intentional reference by Card to Adolf Hitler and criticizes the violence
in the novel, particularly at the hands of the protagonist.
Card responded to Radford's criticisms in Fantasy Review, the same publication.
Radford's criticisms are echoed in John Kessel's essay "Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's
Game, Intention, and Morality", wherein Kessel states: "Ender gets to strike out at his enemies
and still remain morally clean.
Nothing is his fault."
The U.S. Marine Corps Professional Reading List makes the novel recommended reading at
several lower ranks, and again at Officer Candidate/Midshipman.
The book was placed on the reading list by Captain John F. Schmitt, author of FMFM-1
for "provid[ing] useful allegories to explain why militaries do what they do in a particularly
effective shorthand way."
In introducing the novel for use in leadership training, Marine Corps University's Lejeune
program opines that it offers "lessons in training methodology, leadership, and ethics
as well [....] Ender's Game has been a stalwart item on the Marine Corps Reading List since
its inception."
Accolades The weeks ending June 9, August 18, September
8, September 15, November 3, November 10, November 17, and November 24, 2013, the novel
was #1 on the New York Times' Best Sellers List of Paperback Mass-Market Fiction.
Revisions In 1991, Card made several minor changes to
reflect the political climates of the time, including the decline of the Soviet Union.
In the afterword of Ender in Exile, Card stated that many of the details in chapter 15 of
Ender's Game were modified for use in the subsequent novels and short stories.
In order to more closely match the other material, Card has rewritten chapter 15, and plans to
offer a revised edition of the book.
Adaptations Film
In 2011, Summit Entertainment financed and coordinated the film's development and served
as its distributor.
Gavin Hood directed the film, which lasts 1 hour and 54 minutes.
Filming began in New Orleans, Louisiana, on February 27, 2012, and was released on November
1, 2013.
A movie preview trailer was released in May 2013 and a second trailer was released later
that year.
Card has called Ender's Game "unfilmable", "because everything takes place in Ender's
head", and refused to sign a film deal unless he could ensure that the film was "true to
the story."
Of the film that he eventually agreed to, Card said it was "the best that good people
could do with a story they really cared about and believed in", and while warning fans not
to expect a completely faithful adaptation, called the film "damn good."
Video game Ender's Game: Battle Room was a planned digitally
distributed video game for all viable downloadable platforms.
It was under development by Chair Entertainment, which also developed the Xbox Live Arcade
games Undertow and Shadow Complex.
Chair had sold the licensing of Empire to Card, which became a best-selling novel.
Little was revealed about the game, save its setting in the Ender universe and that it
would have focused on the Battle Room.
In December, 2010, it was announced that the video game development had stopped and the
project put on indefinite hold.
Comics
Marvel Comics and Orson Scott Card announced on April 19, 2008, that they would be publishing
a limited series adaptation of Ender's Game as the first in a comic series that would
adapt all of Card's Ender's Game novels.
Card was quoted as saying that it is the first step in moving the story to a visual medium.
The first five-issue series, titled Ender's Game: Battle School, was written by Christopher
Yost, while the second five-issue series, Ender's Shadow: Battle School, was written
by Mike Carey.
Audioplay Ender's Game Alive: The Full Cast Audioplay,
is an audio drama written by Orson Scott Card, based on the Ender's Game novel.
At over seven hours in length, this retelling of Ender's Game hints at story lines from
"Teacher's Pest", "The Polish Boy", "The Gold Bug", Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon,
Shadow of the Giant, Shadows in Flight, Earth Unaware, and Speaker for the Dead, and gives
new insight into the beginnings of Ender's philotic connection with the Hive Queen.
Ender's Game Alive is directed by Gabrielle de Cuir, produced by Stefan Rudnicki at Skyboat
Media, published by Audible.com, and performed by a cast of over 30 voice actors playing
over 100 roles.
Translations Ender's Game has been translated into 34 languages:
See also List of Ender's Game characters
List of Ender's Game series planets Formics
Ender's Game Notes
External links About the novel Ender's Game from Card's website
Ender's Game title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Intergalactic Medicine Show: Online science fiction magazine published by Orson Scott
Card.
Features a new Ender's world story in every issue.