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    Ender's Game
    Ender's Game
    Ender's Game
    Audiobook11 hours

    Ender's Game

    Written by Orson Scott Card

    Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki and Harlan Ellison

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    From New York Times bestselling author Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game—adapted to film in 2013 starring Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford—is the classic Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction novel of a young boy's recruitment into the midst of an interstellar war.

    In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

    Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

    Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

    Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is the winner of the 1985 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

    THE ENDER UNIVERSE

    Ender series
    Ender’s Game / Ender in Exile / Speaker for the Dead / Xenocide / Children of the Mind

    Ender’s Shadow series
    Ender’s Shadow / Shadow of the Hegemon / Shadow Puppets / Shadow of the Giant / Shadows in Flight

    Children of the Fleet

    The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
    Earth Unaware / Earth Afire / Earth Awakens

    The Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
    The Swarm /The Hive

    Ender novellas
    A War of Gifts /First Meetings

    Editor's Note

    Off to Battle School…

    A scifi staple and one of the best gateways into the genre. Ender’s genius and endless empathy as he trains to protect the Earth from an invading alien race make him one of the most admirable protagonists, deserving of the long-running, award-winning series he’s sparked.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateAug 5, 2008
    ISBN9781427205278
    Ender's Game
    Author

    Orson Scott Card

    Orson Scott Card is best known for his science fiction novel Ender's Game and its many sequels that expand the Ender Universe into the far future and the near past. Those books are organized into the Ender Saga, which chronicles the life of Ender Wiggin; the Shadow Series, which follows on the novel Ender's Shadow and is set on Earth; and the Formic Wars series, written with co-author Aaron Johnston, which tells of the terrible first contact between humans and the alien "Buggers." Card has been a working writer since the 1970s. Beginning with dozens of plays and musical comedies produced in the 1960s and 70s, Card's first published fiction appeared in 1977--the short story "Gert Fram" in the July issue of The Ensign, and the novelette version of "Ender's Game" in the August issue of Analog. The novel-length version of Ender's Game, published in 1984 and continuously in print since then, became the basis of the 2013 film, starring Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, and Abigail Breslin. Card was born in Washington state, and grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He served a mission for the LDS Church in Brazil in the early 1970s. Besides his writing, he runs occasional writers' workshops and directs plays. He frequently teaches writing and literature courses at Southern Virginia University. He is the author many science fiction and fantasy novels, including the American frontier fantasy series "The Tales of Alvin Maker" (beginning with Seventh Son), and stand-alone novels like Pastwatch and Hart's Hope. He has collaborated with his daughter Emily Card on a manga series, Laddertop. He has also written contemporary thrillers like Empire and historical novels like the monumental Saints and the religious novels Sarah and Rachel and Leah. Card's work also includes the Mithermages books (Lost Gate, Gate Thief), contemporary magical fantasy for readers both young and old. Card lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife, Kristine Allen Card. He and Kristine are the parents of five children and several grandchildren.

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    Reviews for Ender's Game

    4.5/5

    14,143 ratings600 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This has been my favorite novel since I was twelve or thirteen. Back then, I wondered if the author was the only adult who understood the feelings of children--at least of children who feel like property of manipulative adults, isolated from their peers, as if competing in a brutal life. Ender Wiggin seemed to be the first honest child that I'd met in fiction.

      Of course, Orson Scott Card's characters repeatedly mention that the precocious main characters were bred and selected for their intelligence and unusual insights. That way, readers could believe Ender's perspective when they might not have otherwise.

      The believability of the premise of Ender's Game is yet a stretch for some readers, but many of the science fiction elements are clichés. They were meant to be. Card didn't waste time in this novel describing how the world united under one government, explaining how the interplanetary war started, or showing the culture and biology of the aliens (buggers or Formics, depending on the edition). Card also assumes (falsely, perhaps) that readers can figure out on their own why a society would train their soldiers starting in early childhood for a war that's expected to take decades.

      What matters most in this novel isn't the external war or politics, anyway. What matters is the internal struggles of its characters. It's the relationships the characters have with themselves and with each other that made this story feel like a friend to its readers.

      Some of us really understood the characters, "what they want, what they believe," enough to "love them the way they love themselves." And we keep on loving them many years later.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Very good. Focuses on the psychological struggle of a child training for war
    • 3/5
      Narrated by Stefan Rudnicki, Harlan Ellison and cast. This non-SF fan eventually got around to this SF classic and enjoyed the production. At first I couldn't quite get around Ender and the other kids being such prodigies and talking like they're adults. But it is SF and the world can be any way the author wants. Thought-provoking themes of influence, compassion, empathy, war, and rebellion.
    • 4/5
      Very readable, engaging, thought-provoking science fiction for a broad audience.The only reason I reserve the last star is because the ending felt somewhat rushed and not as satisfying as I would have liked.I was very effected by the personal experiences of the elite children and their responsibilities to humanity. Unfortunately, I see a current trend in using children (all children) as tools for selfish, economic purposes. It feels like we are trying to create as many Einsteins as possible and thereby depriving children of their childhood and creative free-play.As I empathized with the special children in the story, there were to many uncomfortable parallels with how we process human children today. We want to steer people to think out of the box in order to help solve humanity's biggest problems, but not at the risk of having them develop too much autonomy. This paradox is most apparent in the way we structure our education system. Intelligent sheep. Very scary.
    • 5/5
      I really liked this book. I had a hard time though wrapping my head around the idea of there being so many children this young with that level of intelligence. I can’t get my four year old to stop eating his boogers.

      That being said, it is a wonderful, well written story and I loved that it has a real ending. I’m relatively new to this genre and am frustrated after almost every book because it just suddenly ends, or the ending is weak and unsatisfying.

      I just read this book in 2023, almost 40 years after publication, and nothing felt overly dated to me, except maybe their construct of how the internet would work. I never saw the movie or even really knew what it was about, so for me, everything that was meant to be a surprise, was. Even more so, because all the footage/photos I saw for the movie shows a child that looks to be about 11-13. So when Ender was revealed as a 6 year old it made it even more powerful. At first I thought this was back story that perhaps the movie skips or goes through quickly. But as the book goes on and he is still such a young child, I realized they just have aged him up in the movie. You couldn’t cut all of that part out. I’m not sure why they did that. Maybe they thought it was too gruesome for the kids to be doing what they are doing at such a young age. Or maybe like me, they didn’t find it as believe for there to be so many 6 year old geniuses. I’ll have to watch the movie to see if aging them up was a good move.
    • 5/5
      Good god, that was an unexpectedly amazing book. I wasn’t expecting that. No wonder it’s so famous.
    • 4/5
      I started to read this book a long time ago and felt as if it was too juvenile. I needed to read a few more pages - it's wonderful. I was very surprised by the number of insightful philosophical ideas at work. It has good characters as well, a necessity.
    • 4/5
      I was surprised I liked this book, I'm not usually into sci-fi, but I loved this book, I couldn't finish it fast enough. It's so visual and descriptive and I think that helped so much for the plot, like you could read it and picture everything that was happening. A cautionary, some of the early copies (or certain versions) include racist words and phrases.
    • 5/5
      Upped to five stars on a second reading, a good twenty years after the first time around.
    • 4/5
      Ender is a third. His parents were allowed to violate the government mandated limit of two children to have him because the military hoped that this child would grow up to become a hyper-intelligent military commander. A number of years have passed since the first alien invasion of earth. The buggers were defeated. But the next invasion is expected and the military industrial complex is planning for the next war. Ender has been chosen to attend battle school. Much is expected of him. Will he become the type of soldier who will lead armies? Or will the rigors of his training defeat him?
    • 5/5
      A truthful remarkable story about growing up amid tough times. In my top 10 for sure. Writing and narrative is nothing but pure excellence.
    • 4/5
      Orson Scott Card is an active member of the LDS church and I must admit, given my reservations about organized religions I started this book with some hesitation. OK, I don't know diddly squat about Mormonism other than how they were founded. So, I didn't want to ignore reading a Hugo Winner's book just because of its author's religious beliefs. I think my prejudice was not built on him being a religious person, but rather it was built on the religion being Mormonism. It was a mistake on my part to think like that.

      Having said that, I think I made a good choice reading this book. It deserves the award it got. It makes one think about wars. It has a rather amplified version of how we educate our young, strike that, children, for wars. In this book, the methods they employ to turn a Ender into a great commander who is coerced into eradicating an entire species seems cruel. I am a peace-monger, but even I thought there was no other choice to survive against an unknown enemy.

      And, like most wars, this turns out to be based on a gross misunderstanding. Who knows what'll happen in the next book?
    • 5/5
      This is a good read. I did not like the sequels as much.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. It was so deep and thought provoking. Great storytelling and narration too.
    • 5/5
      Ender's Game is loved by both adults and children. Ender's struggle to succeed in the battle training program often registers with children trying to overcome school. He is the meat the bullies pick on, and children can relate to his torment. On the other hand, adults appreciate the moral dilemma Ender is put through. The book is a must read for everyone. It is science fiction without the gadgetry. It's more like philosophy set in another world and another time.
    • 4/5
      This is the go-to young adult sci-fi for a reason. I don't care how old you are, this is required reading.
    • 5/5
      This was so good! I assumed that I would not like this book but I was very wrong. The characters were very engaging as was the story.
    • 5/5
      I will always love this book, it is a great book!
    • 5/5
      Read this in High School back in the eighties and have ever since thought of it as on of the best books I ever read. Everyone I ever gave it to read loved it.
    • 4/5
      I was late coming to this Sci Fi classic but better late than never. I really enjoyed it. I sympathised with Ender's character and while some of the plot points were a bit predictableand perhaps not that subtle, I think the ideas are original and clever to have children as the main protagonists. I would read more of this series.
    • 5/5
      This may well be the best book I've ever read. The fact that it was published in the eighties when nobody knew of touchscreens and tablets and internet and the idea of teaching by playing games was a novelty simply blows my mind. I cannot recommend it enough.
    • 2/5
      [Ender's Game] is completely plot driven and thus moves the reader forward quickly. Unfortunately, that's about the best thing I can say for it. Poorly written in a mix of styles (not driven by character's speech or p.o.v.); implausible at best, since Ender is perfectly compassionate, perfectly brilliant, perfectly soldier-like (did I mention that Ender ages from 6 to 10 in the book?) and in the end, perfectly unbelievable; an obviously tacked-on, hoked-up ending that attempts to mitigate the book's emphasis on the value of violence--this is just a mess. I'll be reading the first Harry Potter book this week, and it will be interesting to contrast the two--especially since Card has stated that the basic Potter plot is the same as the Ender plot. I hope Rowling did better.
    • 3/5
      Yes, there are worrying political undertones in this book. But Ender Wiggin is a captivating, engaging and brilliant main character, and I loved reading about him, his adventures, and the moral questions he wrestled with throughout the book. His siblings are equally fascinating, and the framing device of the entire thing lends that extra edge of darkness to an already twisted book.
    • 5/5
      I read Ender's Game for the first time about three years ago and was eager to re-read it. I am now reading it for the second time and almost half way through. It's a fantastic story!
    • 5/5
      Blew through this book in a handful of hours. Amazing.
    • 2/5
      Folks into computer games would like this book. I found it a bit too oppressive. Besides, Card is a complete, utter homophobe.
    • 4/5
      Wow. I’ve been meaning to read this book for years. I mentioned as such last year to my father and he gave me his copy of the book. So I finally picked it up. I get why so many people like it. I’m not huge into books about aliens or space settings, never have been, but I was drawn in. The book was a little depressing, which almost threw me. I’m in a weird funk this winter so depressing books seem even more depressing than usual. And while the book isn’t very big, it felt really long. I probably should as it follows Ender from when he is four to when he is I don’t know how old – but old. I’m not sure how I feel about the twist at the end that I heard everyone never pictured happening, but I think I liked it. And it looks like I’m just in time to see the new movie on this book. However, I’m not sure if I want to see it or not. This will be a book I will need to think about for a few days, to really take in. It’s good writing, and it’s a good story. I’d be interested in reading some of the other books that are related, such as Ender’s Shadow at some point, which I hear is the same story but from Bean’s eyes. I’m glad I finally got to this one.
    • 4/5
      Took me a while to get into, but once I did, I was hooked. Often characterization takes a back-seat to the story in sci-fi, but not in this book.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book, and I have been recommending it to all of my friends and family, whether fans of sci-fi or not. The psychology is what makes it great, in which anyone can create their own meaning.
    • 4/5
      I resisted reading this book for years because it seemed like a kid's book (even though I knew it really wasn't), but I finally gave in to see what the big deal was. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, and at some points didn't want to put it down. But there were other things about the book that I didn't like, including subplots that seemed to be shoved in and underdeveloped, and sequences that were very long and detailed followed by a few paragraphs that glossed over major events. Overall a good book, though.