Ender's Game

Special 20th Anniversary Edition

By: Orson Scott Card

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki, Harlan Ellison, Gabrielle de Cuir

Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut - young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister. Is Ender the general Earth needs?

But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is the winner of the 1985 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Browse more titles in the Ender Wiggin series.

©1977, 1985, 1991 Orson Scott Card (P)2002 Fantastic Audio, an imprint of Audio Literature

Critic reviews

• Nebula Award Winner, Best Novel, 1985

• Hugo Award Winner, Best Novel, 1986

"'Intense' is the word for Ender's Game." (The New York Times)

Absolutely amazing!!!

my favorite book series ever written! I discovered this series in 7th grade and have been re reading then ever since and I'm 33 now.

Classic sci fi

Enders game is such a classic and is fully worth a solid read at least once every couple years.

almost five stars

The single thing that kept me form giving this book five stars for ftory was the idea that the queen could be impregnated in the pulpa stage, pre-birth.

In the real world, the queen bee mates once in her life, returns to the hive, where perhaps other queens have been born. If not, she has an easy life. if other queens (sisters)return to that hive, then they must fight.

it becomes survival of the fittest.

my favorite book of all time

I first read this book when I was in high school and immediately recognized it as the most compelling, intelligent, insightful and exciting story I’d ever read. About a decade ago, I found this performance of the story and have loved it, too, ever since.

Rudnicki does such a great job with so many of Scott Card’s stories, and doesn’t disappoint here. I’ve re-listened to this version of the story more than 100 times and love it every time.

Now that my kid is almost old enough to read it, I’m not sure whether I’ll give them the book or the audiobook first, but I’m sure they’ll love them both as much as I have.

Great book, bad voice over editing

Well written and well read, but there are spots where continuity is lost with poor editing mod-sentence or mid-paragraph.

Giving 5 star just cuz

It is a classic. I am sure I will enjoy it even more if I am still an YA, but a good book to this day nonetheless. #Clever #tagsgiving #sweepstakes

Still ahead of it's time!

What made the experience of listening to Ender's Game the most enjoyable?

The entire production of this was amazing from start to finish. The different voice actors in the "cut scenes" made this feel even more alive.

What did you like best about this story?

Orson Scott Card creates a rich but easy to visualize world. Nothing is so technical I fail to understand it, yet everything is so developed I can easily see the future that was created. It's truly hard to stop listening because everything happens so quickly and there is also a reason to come back to this story.

Which character – as performed by Stefan Rudnicki and Harlan Ellison – was your favorite?

Hmm... I actually like Valentine the most.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I don't think it made me laugh for cry but I did have an emotional connection to this character by the end. I felt I'd gone on this journey with Ender so I can't help but feel a part of his world.

Any additional comments?

I know it was written 20 years ago, and what amazes me is how nothing seemed "over done" and I couldn't say "I've seen this before." There are always tropes you find in every story be it the modest pretty girl or overly nice guy who turns out bad - things like this don't really show up in the story. It just amazed me that a book written so long ago was still managed to surprise me from time to time.

Good book, bad narrator

I liked the book as a whole, although some parts seemed to drone on. Towards the middle the author tries to focus a lot more on Enders sister and brother, but that entire part could have been cut out and reduced to a chapter, is even that. The worst thing was the narrator. His voice drones on, and it almost sounds like he’s bored while reading the book, which made me kind of bored as well. He doesn’t change the way he speaks very much for each character, so his slight attempt to do so is very noticing what every time, to the point it would throw me out of the story time and time again. Would I read this book? Definitely worth a read. Would I listen to the audio version? Never again.

My all-time favorite Scifi book

This is the book that all other books should be cast against. And this particular rendition is perfection.

Worst full cast narration i have ever heard

To be fair here, the narrators giving voice to the anonymous commanders in the beginning chapters are outstanding. The male lead is decent but has a tendency to perform in run-on sentences, which is sometimes interesting, and sometimes just doesn't fit. What really drags this performance down is the female lead. She reads everything in an extremely slow monotone. They could have used the female windows texttospeech narrator and it would have been just as good... sometimes you have to wonder how people this awful get casted