Author: Orson Scott Card
Publisher: Atom
Release Date: 2002
ISBN-13: 978-0356500843
Synopsis
THERE IS NO TEACHER BUT THE ENEMY...
Ender Wiggin is battle school's latest recruit. His teachers reckon he could become a great leader. And they need one.
A vast alien force is headed for Earth, its mission: the annihilation of all human life.
Ender could be our only hope.
But first he must survive the most brutal military training program in the galaxy...
My Review
This book first came to my attention last year when the film was announced, one of the people I watch on youtube reviewed it and said it was awesome. I tend to trust her reviews so I requested a copy from the library. I then have to admit that it has sat on my pile for about 6 months. I wanted something quite short this weekend whilst I was waiting for my ipad to charge (was halfway through an ebook when it ran out, grrr) and as this was only 320 pages I thought I would give it a go.
I wasn't really sure anymore of what it was going to be about, so I just dived straight in. My first impressions were - this is weird but I decided to stick with it.
Ender is the third child born in a society where only 2 kids are usually allowed, but his birth was requested by higher powers, his siblings had shown promise for Battle School but weren't quite right, so they hoped Ender would be the answer. Always ridiculed for being a 'third' and picked on my his jealous older brother he had grown quite tough by the age of 6. So when they come to take him away to Battle School, away from his family and everything he has known into a harsh army style environment he is surprisingly well prepared.
The story then follows him through his training as he is pushed and tested and moved and promoted before time.
I actually got about halfway through this book and stopped to comment that I didn't know if I was interested, intrigued or completely bored. It was weird, I was interested enough to find out what happened to him but I didn't really care, and the whole situation just seemed a bit silly. I couldn't get used to the fact that he was only 6-8, he acted more like an experienced, battle hardened 15 year old as did a lot of the other characters.
I also couldn't see the point in some of the situations, they just deliberately seemed to make his life as hard as possible.
I guess that Sci-Fi isn't my strongest genre and neither is fighting/battles so it wasn't really my cup of tea. I ploughed through it and got to the end but by that point I found that I really couldn't care any more.
Overall I was really disappointed with it, I certainly wouldn't bother with the film or any of the other books in what I have now discovered is a Quintet (5 books)
My Rating
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