The Big One

Every so often you come across a creative work that is so legendary, you can no longer look at it with fresh eyes. Ender's Game falls well within that category. It's a legendary book authored by a living legend. When Orson Scott Card drops hints about the financial success of the book, one almost gets the impression he could live off its royalties alone.

But is it any good?

Ender's Game is the novel that made Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game is the book that started the cycle which allows us to call Card a living legend. Ender's Game is The Big One. If you haven't read Ender's Game, you must slink shamefacedly to the bookstore, pick it up, and fix that social gaffe immediately. Otherwise you are boil on the butt of a flea in the fur of a rat in the science fiction or LDS literature landscape.

Even the origin of the book is the stuff of legend. Freshly scrubbed Orson Scott Card was a BYU graduate in drama, trying to make a financial go of his own theater and failing miserably at it. He was in debt and at wit's end. In desperation, he resorted to an old love of his -- writing science fiction -- and penned a lengthy short story called "Ender's Game" (now available free on his website). The story was purchased by science fiction editing great Ben Bova, and the rest is history.

Many published short stories and a few published novels later, Card was a respected up-and-coming science fiction author who was considered to have had a strong career from the beginning. Then he decided he wanted to write something called Speaker for the Dead, about a fellow who would travel from planet to planet and "speak" the life (a sort of honest and brutally frank eulogy) of deceased people at their funerals. But the book wasn't gelling, and Card wrestled with the problem, searching for a solution.

One day he realized that the Speaker for the Dead needed to be an adult Ender Wiggin, the youthful protagonist of his first short story. Suddenly everything fell into place, and again history was about to be made. The only problem was, for Ender Wiggin to be the protagonist of Speaker for the Dead, Card needed to novelize Ender's Game so he could set up the newly designated sequel.

And that's exactly what he did, with the blessing of his patient and understanding editor who had already contracted for Speaker. The plot and the characters of Ender's Game became fleshed out, and the science fiction genre is better for it. Ender became the son of a Catholic father and a Mormon mother in a day when religion was all but illegal. He also became the hero of thousands of kids everywhere who saw in Ender a strong role model whose intelligence could put adults to shame.

Ender's Game is now his consistently best-selling book, and required reading in many schools across the country. Most Card fans find their way to him via Ender's Game. Many science fiction fans cut their teeth on the book. It's not unheard of that eventually some readers convert to the Gospel, thanks to their introduction to Card through Ender's Game.

And the legend doesn't stop there. The two most prestigious awards in science fiction are the Hugo and the Nebula -- the former chosen by readers, the latter by authors. Ender's Game won both the Hugo and the Nebula. But that wasn't good enough for the Card legend. When the sequel that started it all, Speaker for the Dead, came out, it also won the Hugo and Nebula awards. That had also never been done before. Card's standing as one of the science fiction greats was assurred. Like I said, the book is legendary.

But is it any good?

Duh.

It's a book that works at many levels. If you're a kid who likes to see kids one-up adults, Ender's exploits in Battle School as he outwits every challenge thrown at him by the teachers will thrill you. If you're a connoisseur of excitement and action, the deadly confrontations Ender has with fiercely envious colleagues and the fascinating descriptions of training battle after battle will satiate you. If you're a lover of deep, multifaceted stories, Ender's Game is loaded with deep meaning layered intricately throughout, as Card explores the moral implications of exploiting and destroying young children to save the human race from a superior alien threat, and the justification of genocide for self-defense. If you like hard science fiction, Ender's Game contains one of the coolest and most famous gizmos in all of science fiction: the Battle Room, where kid soldiers can train in 3D, zero-G environments. Military interaction, political intrigue, psychological drama, action scenes, tender family moments, heavily-disguised spirituality, even the anticipation of virtual reality and the Internet -- it's all there. What's not to like?

I'll tell you what's not to like. In the short story, and even more so in the novel, Card horribly telegraphs the surprise ending, making it no surprise at all. And he does so with no need whatsoever. The circumstance that foreshadowed the ending was unnecessary and wouldn't have been missed. He should have left it out and allowed the ending to have the huge impact it should have had all along.

Fortunately, there is so much going on in Ender's Game that the surprise ending is only a small payoff in the book, and it's inept handling within an otherwise masterful piece of storytelling doesn't come close to ruining the experience of reading one of the most important books in science fiction. Let me emphasize again, if you haven't read it, do so at once. Order it anonymously online if you have to. They'll protect your identity, and your shameful secret will be safe.

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D. Michael Martindale
dmichael@wwno.com