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)

The end will astonish you.

Ender's Game is an audiobook I have been told was always amazing and it did not fall short. The end took myself by a little bit of surprise and the book is one that is best when finished. If you listen or read it without finishing you may not enjoy it, but the author really knows how to put it all together.

A good production with a little extra

Do you have to listen to the audiobook of ‘Ender’s Game’ if you had listened to the audio play ‘Ender’s Game Alive’ and want to further immerse yourself in the so-called ‘Enderverse’? A lot of die-hard Ender fans seems to swear by it judging from the reviews. I disagree.

While ‘Ender’s Game’ is probably the best option for the purist, ‘Ender’s Game Alive’ gives you the whole story and more, since Orson Scott Card has seemingly incorporated some ideas from ‘Ender’s Shadow’ in the audio play. Furthermore die-hard Enderverse purists should start with ‘First Meetings: in the Enderverse’ which contains the original novelette. Personally, I prefer ‘Ender’s Game Alive’ due to the actors and the ripening of an old classic into its current form.

Yet this review is about ‘Ender’s Game’ which is itself an excellent production which also deserves five stars.

The story while along the same lines, are more inward focussed. Much is left implicit and it seems that the listener is caught up in the mind of the boy Ender Wiggin. The listener sees the world of Battle School through the eyes of Ender and your emotions are closely linked to the way he experiences things. The audiobook also provides you with more elaborate scenes especially after the great war against the ‘Buggers’ are won.

The bonus material added to the audiobook ‘Ender’s Game’ might tip the scale in buying the audiobook and not the audio play. Orson Scott Card discusses how ‘Ender’s Game’ came into being for more than half an hour. It is indeed an interesting listen which also gives you some insight on how the film came into being. In another added recording at the back of the audiobook, Card addresses young listeners/readers about the truths found in Ender’s Game and how it apply to their world. If you care for these things, the audiobook might be the best choice. If not, you are faced with a difficult decision - both ‘Ender’s Game’ (the audio book) and ‘Ender’s Game Alive’ are excellent productions that brings alive the Enderverse. Enjoy Ender’s universe, just don’t buy both versions of Ender’s Game.

I could not rest until I finished!

Ender's Games was terrific. I am a huge Asimov fan, and Ender's Game rates up there with the fathers of Sci Fi. I could not rest until I finished the entire book. I actually considered staying up and starting the second part. But my exaustion got the better of me. I will start Book Two in the morning. If you like a great story, you will love Ender's Game. Genre has nothing to do with it, it is just a great story.

Worth the seemingly long start

At first I wasnt happy with this story. I found the beginning too detached from reality to really feel bad for Ender. Humans are in a battle to survive and all Ender does is cry "why do they push me so hard?". I found it difficult to feel bad for a child who will be dead if he, as well as all of the other children in the school, dont focus on survival. Look at most children in a war-torn country today and you will find angry yet strong children with a will to destroy. Ender seemed a bit detached from his own reality and a bit "soft" for a boy who was raised to be a fighter.

As I got towards the middle of the story it went from being a sob story to being a really good story about war, survival, and what must be done to win.

By the time the book ended I had to give it a full 5 star rating. The story was strong and I felt great emotion towards the end. I was actually surprised by the ending and listened to it twice to absorb it.

I already DL'd the "Speaker For The Dead" story and cant wait to hear it. I am NOT happy with the fact that Audible is missing the Xenocide part to this series which is mentioned in a previous review by someone else. :(

Interesting science, but a little stretched

I picked this book up because everyone told me it was great science fiction. In truth, I thought the science was interesting, and some of the games were exciting to see what Ender would do with them, but I couldn't get past the boy's age. If the story had started with Ender just a couple of years older I could have enjoyed this book more. Or, if they had discussed what made Ender so special in more depth, I would have been able to swallow the plot a little better.

However, the author did not sufficiently describe this for me and instead of being able to suspend my disbelief, I was just annoyed. The performance was good, but the story had me shaking my head.

Also, the very, very end was weird. In a book where religion was just skimmed over, suddenly having Ender's words as "holy writ" felt strange. It was like the author told himself he needed to have something spiritual there so he crammed it in and tried to make it fit.

On a whole, however, the book was interesting and I liked the science, so I gave it three stars for the story, five for the performance, and then let it even out at four overall.

A Great Read!

I loved listening to this book. It not only did a great job of transporting me into the future, it also had wonderful character development and made me care. I strongly recommend this book.

Classic Sci Fi

I'm not sure I'm qualified to review this book. I didn't like it as much as I thought I would but I still enjoyed it a lot. Perhaps it didn't live up to its expectations for me since I heard so many good things about it before I downloaded it. I liked the premise of the story with a young boy having way more responsibility than someone of his age should ever have and fighting his way through battle school. Our hero (Ender) goes through lots of soul searching and has to make a lot of tough decisions. He always seems to come out on top but being at the top can have some drawbacks.

FANTASTIC BOOK!

This is one of the best books I've listened to in a long time. WOW! OSC is such an awesome and talented writer. It is a must read!

I love this series...

First things first, you must realize that this is a story about an exceptional child, but not a story for children. This is a book about politics and war. This is a story of a government desperate to find the solution to a problem that is both real and imagined. It is a fascinating look into military strategy and the life of Andrew Wiggins.

I will warn you that some of the ?ideas? presented will offend those who are more politically correct than others, but if you take it for what it actually is? the pre-story to the second book, ?The Speaker for the Dead,? and know that it will give you a base understanding of the main character in this series, you will grow to love and care about the characters presented here within.

One last warning, this series will draw you in and you will not be able to stop until you have read every book in the series.

Great story, fine audio

This really is a GREAT story. It attracted me to sci-fi in the first place. I loved listening to this also, but i kinda wish that they had a kid read it (at least the parts of the kids). It was harder in the audio version to understand everything from the kids point of view when it's a much older man reading the part. Also, it's harder to fully grasp and understand the more technical parts in the story than when I was reading it.

Overall, I recommend that you actually read this first, but if you are not able to, the audio will do fine. I REALLY enjoyed this.