I read this book when I was in college and decided to see how I’d react to it some fifteen years later. Ender’s Game follows Ender Wiggin, a child prodigy who is selected to undergo training at the Battle School, an elite academy created by a precariously united Earth to train soldiers to fight an alien race known as the buggers. We watch Ender undergo a grueling transformation from little boy to child soldier, a journey that is shaped by Ender’s conflicting capacities for both empathy and brutal violence.
The other aspects of the story still hold up well, although I’m surprised that my younger self didn’t see the resolution coming from a mile away. You’ll have to read it yourself to see what I mean.
Next up is Sam Harris’ The End of Faith.
Check out booktalk.com for bulletin board discussions of both these books last fall.