I ask this question because I think about how in speaker for the dead they mention that around the age of 30 ender is nearly 3,000yrs old due to constant space travel at near light speed.

If space travel like this was suddenly available do you think you would take trips like this and see hundreds to thousands of years of advancements in a decade or two?

I think if I could go with 1 very special person like ender did with his sister I could make the trip.

Hey guys, I need a small favor for checking something Can someone tell me how many chapters there are in the physical version of shadows in flight?

I just finished re-reading the book after reading it in high school (like 17 years ago lol) and I'd have to say it was still a great book. But I feel a bit embarrassed in the way JKR Rowling fans must feel bc there's a lot of things that are either just screwed up or a bit backwards. Here's some to start:

He starts off with religious persecution and the government telling people not to have many kids. Like one, it feels like cold war commentary. I also just found out yesterday that card is Mormon and a lot of that makes sense now. Like calm down card you guys aren't the ones being persecuted lol. I'm an atheist, raised by dissatisfied Catholics, but went to school in Utah for a while. I think in his own way he's trying to be inclusive by including different cultures which may have been even progressive at the time. At the same time I don't think he understands the complexity and risk of poverty of raising kids, especially motherhood,and why people have less or none with a higher standard of living. I have some friends who were raised Mormon and were pressured to have a lot of kids with basically strangers when they were like 19 , which they did not recommend. It's strange that instead of seeing this as problematic he sees the government threats to large families , which don't exist, as problematic. He doesn't seem hateful towards women but kinda ignorant.

The way he emphasized child prodigies is very "nature over nurture" to point where it doesn't make must sense. I didn't really pick up on this as a kid bc it's a fairly common great man story. I've come to understand that differences in intelligence are largely exaggerated and how intelligence is often localized to what people are studying and doing. However assuming kids like the Wiggens exist, I feel their training and education wouldn't let them to their teenage/adult intelligence and positions. Enders socialization and especially his social isolation seem like they'd in fact break him. Card shows how it does break him but at the same time makes him brilliant and sort of implies it was necessary and worth it. I feel the rest of the characters in the battle ship, other than a few commanders are basically NPCs and are looked down upon for following directions and not being ahead. They are all supposed to be geniuses but only a few really matter and he becomes a genius in an abusive environment basically. Valentine's and Peters genius makes less sense since their parents are so absent. Sure it makes sense that they are bored in school and way ahead but they don't seem to be engaged and involved in anything, or pushed ahead into college early or something. It makes sense that they are able to get Internet access from their dad but I don't really buy they'd be able to control the world that way with only intellegence and manipulation skills. Their parents also notice they spend way too much time on the webs and do nothing else but that seems to go on for years without change. Enders is more believable since you are at least taught his backstory.

There's really only two girls in the book Valentine and Petra. Petra is a tomboy type and has her own book series. I don't really have a problem with her altho it's a bit ridiculous that she's the only girl on battle school. I feel Valentine's character in a way is realistic and but problematic. She's the middle child, the mediator, and plays a sort of mothering role to Ender in the absence of literally anyone else. I feel like she's an ideal little girl in Card's eyes who I think mostly sees women as mothers. I know the sort of peacekeeper type exists but I feel it's ridiculous how far she carried on under Peter with a political persona that she doesn't believe in. Its also screwed up the way she leads ender to doing what the government wants. Like she's supposed to be a very moral character, yet doesn't follow her own morals, but yet becomes a brilliant writer in the end.

The last thing I'll mention is the justification of genocide and colonization. It's all done under the pretense that the children were forced into this, especially Ender. At the same time it ends with colonial expansion being necessary and beneficial for the human race after the bugger wars. Now people are farming and colonizating and having big families. Why do they even need to do this if most of humanity was wiped out in the bugger wars? It seems like some pilgrim shit and his misunderstanding of why people don't have a lot of kids. I guess they save the buggers in the end but even that seems like a justification of colonization.

I still love this book and the imaginative world and some of the commentary on the way we use children. Still there's a lot of problems with it and it feels like a bit of a guilty pleasure. What other things have people noticed ?

Hey everybody,

I was re-reading the book today, and I realized that with the almost daily breakthroughs with AI, the "mind game" in the books could actually be made. Crazy, i know, but... also really cool. Do you think AI could be used to successfully psychoanalyze people? is that too evil? If i knew how to code, i'd try to make it immediately. How would you train the AI? How could you make sure it avoided too many patterns? If it "adapted to the interests" of the person playing it, wouldn't it just end up as another version of tik tok, focusing on shock value? How would you stop that? If there are any coders here, i'd love to know what you think. Is it possible?

I read Enders Game in high school (25 years ago, lol). It’s the book that showed me that I actually enjoyed reading. It holds a special place for me. I watched the movie when it came out (15 years after I read the book) and wasn’t a fan.

Fast forward to this year. I gave my copy to one of my kids to read. He loved it. While he was reading it, I ran through with the audiobook again so I can keep it fresh in my mind to talk to him about what he is reading. He finished the book and wanted to watch the movie.

We sat down tonight to watch it and I was pleasantly surprised. It was much closer to the book than I remember. Some of the changes, I understand for rating purposes and time purposes. Ender killing Stillson and Bonzo would have probably changed the rating and the whole Demosthenes and Locke would have been pretty dry on screen. Making Anderson more emotional was a good anti-Graff. But overall, I have to admit that the movie was a much better adaptation than I remember!

After watching the movie many times and hearing so much about how the book was so much better (book always is) i finally got my hands on the book. And yes the movie absolutely did it so wrong. The book was so good and im excited to continue the story.

Lifelong book fan here. I knew the movie was bad so never watched it until now. I’m guessing people have talked about this, but just want to say, it’s not so much so bad, as it’s such a good , complex story, that maybe this is the only way to do it in a limited amount of time and still stay try to the story line. ??

Anyways I’m like 20 minutes in, and kind of hate it, but I’m committed.

Shame tho. The backstory is missing. It’s so rushed…

On the final few chapters, Peter appeared on the planet Path with a jewel (not sure) on his ear which connects him with Jane (making him 3rd person to be entrusted with direct communication with Jane). This is in addition to Jane letting Peter travel. Why? Does not Jane care how Ender feels with this? Why the sudden trust? Confused how quickly they bonded.

I just want to make sure before I dive into it. I know there exists certain series that are said to be best read in a certain order. I really love the movie, and as someone who knows how poorly novels typically translate into films, I'm sure the novel will be even better. I'm not really into Sci-Fi, but I like Ender as a character.

Any help is appreciated!

So I got really obsessed with Enders Game this month and read the whole book so I could watch the movie and holy shit it sucked honestly, the casting was weird, why did they choose a tall 14 year old to play a boy who's 6-10 for most of the story and 12 at the last part with Valentine, in the book is obvious that Enders a small boy so it really was shocking to see him so damn tall, also It was weird how Enders launch group was all teenagers as well when in the book they were all little kids like him so I'd assume they're supposed to be about 6 as well, and I didn't like the fact they threw Bean into his launch group when they didn't meet till the middle of the book, also in the book they mention none of his Dragon Army soilders were older then him but in the movie they changed that which sucked cause I found it nice that they gave him an army of younger boys to teach and lead, then everything was rushed including the character development which was not even really there at all and they changed so many scenes and cut so many good parts like the battles in the battle school and Enders training with the launchies which I was excited to see and they didn't even have the part where he was transferred to Rat Army for a bit, then they completely changed the end of the story with him not seeing Valentine or going through the time where he couldn't see his friends only talk to them through his headset, and just overall there was so much stuff disappointing with the movie, the book was damn good, one of the best I've read so I expected the movie to be as good but honestly it was really a let down and they should have either made the movie like an hour longer to fit more or made it a movie series or something to fit the good parts, I do have to admit the war at the end against the Formics and the fights we did get to see in the battle rooms were honestly cool but that's about all that I really liked about the movie the rest just wasn't that good

What do yall think about the movie? Was there any parts you liked or didn't like or any parts you wish they had added to the movie

how high do you think ender's IQ is?

Hi folks- I have a copy of a first edition first printing hardcover that I'm looking to sell.

Does anyone have any advice/recommendations on pricing or places to sell other than eBay?

Thanks!

At the end of the book, Ender and Abra, find the contents of Ender's mind game. The swings, slide, monkey bars, and the cement skeleton of the giant. That leads him to the tower on the cliff where he finds the cacooned hive queen, who is apparently perpetually preserved.

I understand that the hive queen is tapped into Ender's mind, but that wouldn't allow her to know where the Ministry of Colonization would eventually send him.

The only thing that would make sense to me, is if she built that exact setup on the edge of a cliff, with a cacooned hive queen, on every inhabited planet. If that is the case, that would mean that on every one the hundred worlds, there is another hive queen waiting to be released.

This movie is the unsung hero of the book.

I'm in the process of re-listening to the Early Enderverse books on Audible, and I'm noticing some discrepancies. In Shadow Puppets, a group of people flee to the old Battle School from Earth. The station is being used as a staging area for MinCol. But in Children of the Fleet, the station has been converted into Fleet School. During that book we learn from Graff that a certain Greek hero is behind the antagonistic group in the story. There's no mention of colonists passing through Fleet School, and Graff's stationed somewhere else in the system. I imagine this is why OSC never details specific dates in his books. People like me would try to timeline it.

The first book calls the aliens Buggers almost exclusively. Later books try to shift away from this name and call them Formics and at one point says that Buggers is just a crude slang term. I read somewhere that the author didn't realise "buggers" was a rude term in Britain until after the first book was published.

Being an Englishman I thought Buggers was a great name. They're bugs but they're also an opponent so calling them Buggers is fine. Dictionary definitions use phrases like "A foolish, silly, annoying or contemptible person, possibly one of low status or deserving pity". That's a good way to describe them from the beginning when they're an enemy but also at the end when there's regret colouring the situation. The phrase "those poor buggers" can express genuine concern and compassion for them.

Yes it also has a meaning related to anal sex and the people who perform it, but that's secondary to it's use as a mild form of insult. You're not going to get Peppa Pig calling Daddy Pig a daft bugger but it's the kind of low-level swear that never gets bleeped and family friendly comedies can say it without causing any outcry. No one uses the literal definition unless you're talking about the 1950s when buggary was illegal.

I think he should have kept the name Buggers. Its a good name.

I just finished Children of the Mind and I don’t want to read an entire series before I get to find out about the Descoladores. Do I need to read all of Ender’s Shadow or can I skip to the end?

I read every single Ender's Game book that I could find and I loved every single one of them, especially the Formic Wars. However, I read the Last Shadow and absolutely hated it. I never even finished it because literally nothing of interest was happening. Half way into the book and all that had happened were meaningless conversations between characters. I couldn't see an end goal or anything really and it was all just mind-numbing nonsense. How do people here view the book?

A couple of years ago, I started thinking about how interesting it would be if the Buggers succeeded in breaking through to Ender through the Fantasy Game. This could result in 1) psychically taking over Ender and causing him to betray humanity or 2) communicating with Ender and convincing him that they are peaceful and Ender's compassion for the Buggers causes him to conclude that humanity's prejudicial and xenophobic nature is sentient life's greatest threat across the universe, which causes him to lose the final battle on purpose and turn the Bugger fleet against the humans and lead a final invasion against Earth.

As the Buggers invade and destroy capital cities (in my head it's Independence Day-style only there is no Will Smith or Jeff Goldblum to save them), humanity eventually has no choice but to scorch-earth their own planet in a desperate attempt to stave odd extinction. The Bugger fleet is destroyed (ostensibly) but civilization as we know it crumbles as nuclear winter sets in. [Vague plot device]% of the population dies from the blasts, the radiation fallout, starvation, and mankind's baser post-apocalyptic instincts over the next 10 years.

The campaign starts a decade later. Small communities of survivors occupy isolated pockets of the world. Resources are scarce. Semblances of comfort, technology, and civilization are even scarcer. Most of Ender's Jeesh have settled in California, scattered among these isolated communities of survivors, but all united in the desire and hope to rebuild what was lost. The party is made up of tenacious children, much like the children of the old, derelict Battle School of the IF. Dink Meeker is the leader of this ragtag group of survivors, the de facto principal of a local school he fondly thinks of as Tiger Army.

So I’ve listened to the audio books for most of the series throughout my life. I just completed Shadow of the Giant and was curious if they address the issue with the 9th child. I still plan on going back to read the Ender books again, but the ending had me wondering. It’s been years since I’ve listened to them so maybe I missed something.

Recently I have grown a liking to dystopia and the occasional sci-fi book. I found Ender's Game somewhere and decided to give it a try; when reading a little about it, I encountered the words "child prodigy" and thought it would be a nice read.

I suppose it's to do with the style of writing, but as a visual thinker I found it a tad bit hard to guide my imagination in several parts of the book. For example: the little information the author offers regarding Ender's appearance is quite insufficient, in my opinion. All we know is that he's a child genius who's sent to Battle School at the tender age of six, making him smaller than most of his counterparts. Well, that is, those he is grouped with later on, not the few in his age group that he starts with. At this point I assumed the image of a particularly thin boy with dark brown hair and pale skin. And since the author didn't indicate otherwise, I've come to accept that it's very possible he may very well look like such.

Another instance of this lack of visual assistance is when Ender uses his "desk", which he does quite frequently. I hadn't a clue what a "desk" may be, though the basic idea was that the "desk" featured a screen of some sort, similar to a computer. Whenever "desk" was mentioned, I pictured a typical classroom table with a screen on its surface. Bizarre, but there really wasn't much more I could make of it.The few clues I've scavenged come from the movie adaptation of the book, which was a great help despite the few differences it has. I'm ashamed to admit it, but the movie was perhaps more enjoyable in that sense for me.

The plot was fascinating, the pacing sufficient. It's just the imagery for me. Please excuse my poor grammar as I am still learning.

What are your thoughts on Ender's Game? (NO SPOILERS FOR THE END PLEASE!)

Recently I have grown a liking to dystopia and the occasional sci-fi book. I found Ender's Game somewhere and decided to give it a try; when reading a little about it, I encountered the words "child prodigy" and thought it would be a nice read.

I suppose it's to do with the style of writing, but as a visual thinker I found it a tad bit hard to guide my imagination in several parts of the book. For example: the little information the author offers regarding Ender's appearance is quite insufficient, in my opinion. All we know is that he's a child genius who's sent to Battle School at the tender age of six, making him smaller than most of his counterparts. Well, that is, those he is grouped with later on, not the few in his age group that he starts with. At this point I assumed the image of a particularly thin boy with dark brown hair and pale skin. And since the author didn't indicate otherwise, I've come to accept that it's very possible he may very well look like such.

Another instance of this lack of visual assistance is when Ender uses his "desk", which he does quite frequently. I hadn't a clue what a "desk" may be, though the basic idea was that the "desk" featured a screen of some sort, similar to a computer. Whenever "desk" was mentioned, I pictured a typical classroom table with a screen on its surface. Bizarre, but there really wasn't much more I could make of it.The few clues I've scavenged come from the movie adaptation of the book, which was a great help despite the few differences it has. I'm ashamed to admit it, but the movie was perhaps more enjoyable in that sense for me.

The plot was fascinating, the pacing sufficient. It's just the imagery for me.

Please excuse my poor grammar as I am still learning.

So I've been getting into audiobooks on Audible a lot over the past couple months and have really been enjoying listening to a lot of sci-fi in particular (I'm on the final book of the Dune saga) and one book which I gave a go was Ender's Game, and I really found myself enjoying it.

The only issue was that I was unable to find any covers of the other books, which is upsetting because I was quite ready to make it the new series that I was going to listen to while I had my hands busy.

I guess my question is, does anyone know why? And possibly if there may be plans to cover them in the future?