Ender's Game Book Review

Second Introductory Nature Shot....

Ender's Game is probably the first particularly deep science fiction that I've ever read, and the funny thing is, on the outside it seems like just another cliche of the genre.  Basically the book is about a boy genius who is humanity's only hope for survival in an upcoming war with an alien race called the "buggers."  And yes, they are supposed to look like, ehem, bugs.  So yeah, insect aliens, space travel, kid genius, all sounds like the norm for sci-fi, right?  However, that's not the case at all.  Orson Scott Card's book turns out to be one of those few sci-fi novels that doesn't focus on lizard men and lazer guns, and instead talks about human issues that are very relevent today.
     The book follows a kid named Ender, who is singled out by Earth's military as the one person who has a chance at being able to strategize and think his way through how to beat the buggers.  A lot to place on a six year old, right?  So, they unceremoniusly whisk him up to space where he has to endure several long years in Battle School.
     One of the big issues that the book explores is government manipulation and whether it is necessarily right or wrong.  Because on one hand Ender is the world's last hope of survival against the alien threat, so the government has no choice but to push the kid to his limits and turn him into the perfect soldier as fast as they can.  But as you can imagine, the whole ordeal is very taxing on Ender, and its hard not to feel his hostility towards those who are manipulating him.  The book does a great job at showing how the constant training in the Battle Room is wearing Ender down both psychologically and physically, as the officials keep finding ways to make the simulated battles more and more difficult.
     With the focus on Ender and the buggers, it feels a bit strange when the book breaks off and throws in clips from the lives Ender's siblings. Valentine and Peter.  It does give the book a broader view of what's happening down on Earth, but it really doesn't seem that necessary.  Valentine and Peter pretend to be adults on the internet and thus publish their own political views of what this country and that country should be doing.  Interesting?  Sort of.  Relevent to Ender's training?  Not really.  Yes, I know that there are some parts where is does vaguely connect with Ender's psych and all that, where the computers use his siblings as a sort of psychological test, but it still doesn't seem enough to justify the time spent with them.
     Of course, one argument for all of this background information is that this is just the first book in the series, and that what happens in this book is refered to later on; the exploits of Valentine and Peter seem to serve better in the long term of the series then in the short term of this one book.
Conclusion:  Ender's Game is not just a look at mankind's struggle to survive, but also how high a price that we're willing to pay in the name of self-preservation.  The book does leave some loose ends and moral dilemns, so in this case I strongly recommend staying with the series from start to finish in order to truly grasp why Orson Scott Card included everything that he did.
Rating:  8/10 "Great"
Favorite Moment:  It's interesting to see how Ender's training all comes together in his final exam, and then of course there's the big reveal at the end which I can't tell because of my No Spoiler Policy.  Just let me say that there's more manipulation involved, and that at the ending it also brings up the important question of whether or not killing off the buggers is a good idea.