"Ender's Game" (1985) by Orson Scott Card REVIEW

"For in that moment, when you truly understand your enemy, you also love him."

Not to far in the future lies the first invasion from the aliens human-kind will call buggers, nearly wiping out the human race. Years later, a second invasion takes place. To prevent a third invasion, the government starts a new schooling system, taking in special children from the age of six to start battle school so that they may finally destroy and conquer the buggers once and for all.

One child specially chosen for battle school is Andrew "Ender" Wiggin. Even at the age of six, he's able to come up with battle strategies at a moments notice, and none of them have ever failed. In battle school, he learns to improve of his gifts through computer simulations and zero-gravity army battles. Could Ender be the one to save humanity?

Spanning about 16 years of Enders life in 324 pages, the pacing of the book was shockingly smooth. The writing was descriptive but brief, tense but relaxing, and really well fleshed-out the characters. I enjoyed every minute of reading it. Given that this is the first book of a 12-ish book series, I feel this is a really great stand-alone novel, teaching respect and giving out some really interesting strategies.

Now I wonder how good the movie is...

5/5 Stars

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Kevin Lau

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