The Science fiction novel, Enders Game is about an extraordinary third child who is illegal due to current population control laws. He is a genius child named Ender Wiggin that has been closely watched by government officials through a monitor on the back of his neck from the time he was born. This monitoring allows the government to see everything Ender does, how he acts and what he says. The government officials are responsible for conducting monitoring such as this in an attempt to find future leaders to help Earth defeat an alien race called the Buggers that were recently fended off in the first battle. The government soon realizes his skillful, aggressive actions and cunning behavior after removing the monitor.
After the monitor was removed, a large bully named Stilson was unafraid to senselessly bully Ender due to the fact that it was now common knowledge that he was no longer being watched by the government. When Stilson decides to make an attempt to assault Ender with two of his friends, Ender makes a swift move, and kills Stilson. Government officials knew he was right for the program and came to bring him away from his family and peers into the Leadership program. In doing so, Ender was losing the one person whom he truly loved most, his sister Valentine. In addition to this, he would also be leaving his torturous and evil brother Peter Wiggin. Peter despised Ender because he was the one chosen to be monitored instead of himself. Ender is drafted into space where he will be trained to become a great leader along with many others in the large space station Battle school.
During the launch into space, the shuttle soon enters a zero gravity state. Colonel Graff soon enters the shuttle bay to find Ender chuckling. He asks him why and Ender claims it was because he was walking on the ceiling, which means there is no up, down, left, or right under Zero gravity conditions. The others did not think it was funny when Graff asked them so, and he insulted all of them for not finding humor in it. Ender was immediately and purposely singled out and pinned against his comrades from this point. When Graff left, one of the other boys started smacking Ender. Ender timed his attack and grabbed his arm, sending him flying toward the top of the shuttle and breaking his arm. Ender is on his own and will now have a hard time making companions in Battle school. The school officials were secretly attempting to socially isolate him.
The new students also known as Launchies are soon given their Desks which is much like a laptop. Ender discovers a mind game on his Desk that is controlled and directed with his thoughts. It has the ability to project your fears, thoughts, and knowledge into the environment. He later finds out that the games are watched, and are used to analyze his thoughts and behavior. The students are introduced to the battle room where students practice their tactics in a large, null-gravity room with flash suits and simulation guns consisting of lasers. There are different teams that students are divided in to. A team such as this would be called a Launch. These teams have different names such as Dragon Army or Salamander. These teams will compete against each other in frequent battles in which scores are recorded. Much controversy takes place within the Lanches throughout Enders experience. Enders first companion and only true friend was Alai, a child in his first Launch. Ender was soon transferred two years early into another Launch shortly after becoming friends with Alai due to his noticed ability to handle a problem with another Launch member, Bernard. In his new Launch, Ender is confronted and greeted by his new Commander, Rat. Rat tells him he doesnt want him training with his old Launch members anymore. Ender knows this is unfair and disobeys Rats request, claiming that Ender could go to a Launch administrator and tell them that Rat is abusing his privileges as a Commander. He has forever pinned Rat against him, but it was well worth it to Ender because he did not want to give up his friendship or time spent with Alai.
Back on earth, Peter has manipulated Valentine into becoming anonymous political voices over the net. Their net names are Locke and Demosthenes which are based off of Greek philosophers. Valentine and Peter are also genius children, though they did not fit the same requirements to be accepted into Battle School as Ender had. Their political influence soon begins to credit respect toward their names, and influence great leaders on a vast level. In battle school, Ender begins thrashing in his sleep at night and seeing images of Peter in the mind game on his desk. Colonel Graff is beginning to worry and the staff is trying to decide what action to take for it.
Ender is soon given Command of Dragon army. Dragon army was discontinued years ago due to superstitions surrounding their extraordinary loss record. Ender is the youngest student to ever be given a commander position in Battle School. Graff gives Ender a list that he may choose from to form his army. As Ender begins to scrape the surface with his army, he is assigned a battle two months before battles are usually assigned to a new army. Despite a lack of training and odds against them, Dragon Army wins the battle. This is the beginning of many schemes and unfair assignments that Dragon army will face. Over some time, Dragon army becomes the most well known and undefeated army in the history of Battle school. The staff continues to increase the challenge and make the battles more unfair for Dragon Army. They go as far as to pin two to three teams against them, give the other teams ten minutes advance to prepare before the game evens started and Dragon entered the room, and even gave Dragon army two battle assignments in one day. Graff is beginning to worry about Ender. He is afraid that he will eventually wear down and become unusable.
Graff is beginning to hear word of a Rival from Enders old Army, Bonzo Madrid, making plans threats to kill Ender. The staff does nothing despite this threat and Enders team puts in great effort to make sure Ender is never left alone. Despite their efforts, Bonzo eventually corners him in the bathroom after his shower with all of his other rivals. Bonzo decides to fight honorably and goes at Ender alone. Ender outsmarts Bonzo by turning on all of the showers to create steam to make his skin slippery. Bonzo makes a grab for Ender, he spins around in Bonzos arms, and jumps up at Bonzos face as hard as he can, ramming his head into his face. Ender continues to punch Bonzo in the face repeatedly despite Bonzos blank stare and lack of movement. Bonzo is laying on the floor with his face in a bloody pulp, and Ender leaves. The staff informs Ender that Bonzo is alive and was iced from Battle school shortly after the fight, but its a lie to keep Ender from feeling remorseful. The truth was that Bonzo was dead the second he was hit. His nose had been jammed into his brain from the impact of Enders head.
Shortly after Enders ordeal with Bonzo, he begins to lose all concern for the game, and makes it clear by not showing up for any battles. He is transferred to command school shortly after on Planet Eros. It is here at Command school where Ender meets Mazar Rackham the great Commander that fought off the buggers in the first Battle. Ender found out that Mazar is still alive because of light speed travel. While everyone lived many, many years of their lives, he lived two to three years on a ship going to Eros. This was done intentionally so he would be alive for the second battle to help train the new great leader that would lead Humanity to victory over the Buggers. Mazar Rackham helps Ender train for Battle with ships through a simulator. Mazar informs Ender that he will now begin to take control of the simulator and increase the challenge of the formations and battles. Ender had begun thinking further into the messages being sent to him from Colonel Graff. When sending a message from light years away, there would be a major time delay from the time the message was sent to when it was received. It was then he suspected The I.F. had discovered the secret behind Light speed communication.
Ender continued to take on these simulations, and was soon accompanied by some familiar voices one day when he entered the simulator. It was Alai, Petra, Hot soup, and Bean from his army at battle school. They communicated to each other instead of communicating with the simulated ship commanders. The simulations kept getting harder and harder, until sometimes they seemed impossible. Despite these conditions, Ender and his group continued to win them all.
Weeks had passed, and one day when Ender entered the simulator there were some Observers that were to be sitting behind him. Mazar let him know they just wanted to judge his performance. The battle began, and they began commanding ships. It was the most impossible of them all. They were outnumbered one-thousand to one. The enemy was in a circular formation. There was one ship in the middle of the formation. A decoy. This decoy was here to lure them into the middle where they would be defenseless and covered from all angles. Alai, Petra, Han Tzu, and Beans ships began attacking, and Ender went right for the Bugger planet itself. All ships within range of him were destroyed around him and he made it to the planet, using the master weapon and destroying the planet. All of the enemy ships stopped functioning. They were invaded and all crews on the ships were dead. They were still breathing, but its as if their brains had stopped functioning. The planet was destroyed. It would seem another simulation was completed. But suddenly the Observers started clapping, cheering, even crying behind him. They hugged ender in tears and congratulated him as they cheered. Graff walked in. Ender began asking what was going on. Graff informed him that all of these simulations were real, and he had won the war. Realizing what had just happened, trying to comprehend it all, and knowing he threw so many real people in ships to their death along with a planet full of living creatures, he retreated to his room. While his comrades returned to Earth to live normal lives, Ender refused to return to earth. He was a hero on earth, but he decided to take the voyage with ongoing ships to help colonize the rest of the now uninhabited Bugger planets. He will spend the rest of his life learning about where the Buggers used to live and making use of the land they once lived on peacefully.
This was an extremely absorbing book. It had so many different themes such as Alienation and loneliness, good and evil, punishment, intelligence, ethics, self-conflict, and history. There was never a slow part in the book, and it had an interesting style where point of view and character communication would change from person to person throughout the book. The characters are all extremely individually developed, and all have very different behavior and points of view. I would recommend this book to anyone. Anyone who likes Science fiction novels, never ordinarily reads books, likes learning more about human behavior, and wants to get sucked into a good book, you should read this.
There were also many examples of Science in this book. One example is Null-gravity. In an environment of Nullgravity or Zero, everything within it is completely weightless. On earth, we have gravity. We have weight so we are grounded. If we could control the gravity of any environment, it would be a true breakthrough. In space, people float about with no sense of up, down, left, or right because they are unaffected by gravity. I think the idea of zero gravity is a very highly science-involved topic. In Enders Game, the battle school gravity is actually completely controlled. The entire ship is filled with artificial gravity, and the Battle rooms are weightless. People have not yet learned how to control such physical conditions, so this is truly an interesting topic for scientists to discuss.
Another example of science in Enders Game is Light speed travel. This book presents the ability to fly light-years across the galaxy, millions of miles per second in a space craft. This kind of transportation has also been undiscovered, and according to many it is impossible. Because of this, it is a good example of fictional science. If humans could actually manage such a feat, we could find and colonize any livable planets, solving any worries of over-population and global warming.
One last example of science is light speed communication. This was the idea of being able to communicate to anyone across the entire universe despite any distance with no delay at all. In this sense, it would be as if you were standing right next to them and talking to them. You cant talk all the way across the earth on a cellophane or through the internet without at least a second of delay. This could solve all communication issues with Astronauts, deep sea divers, and even other advanced living organisms living in the universe.
I hope you get a chance to read this book. Its an interesting experience, you can learn a lot about people and science, and its a very good book to help improve your reading comprehension skills.
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