• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Is Ender's Game a children's book?

Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Socreges

Banned
This may be and likely is a blasphemous question, but I just want to make sure...

Apparently it's from the perspective of a six-year-old and I saw on one site that it is for ages "9-12". I was thinking it may have been so popular because many of you read it at a young age.

I hope I've just been misled. I'd love to read it so long as it's not too ... adolescent...
 
Read it at 12, loved it, reread it a year ago (22), loved it even more. I made my girlfriend read it last year too and she loved it without having ever heard of it before so it's not a nostalgia thing.

It can be read by children, but the theme of the story is definitly not childish.
 
No, it absolutely isn't. Just because it's ABOUT children doesn't mean it's FOR children.
 
I'm not sure, but I do know that Orson Scott Card should've ended that series after the first book. He wrote what, 12 books in that universe?
 
Blackace said:
the series will try to convert you...
Click to expand...

This is a good point. Ender's game is great, but resist the urge to read the sequels. The first sequel (Speaker for the Dead) is decent, but the rest are honestly AWFUL.

Like... I'm an easy man to please. There's very few books in general I can genuinely say I didn't like. And man... those were some shitty books.
 
GDJustin said:
This is a good point. Ender's game is great, but resist the urge to read the sequels. The first sequel (Speaker for the Dead) is decent, but the rest are honestly AWFUL.

Like... I'm an easy man to please. There's very few books in general I can genuinely say I didn't like. And man... those were some shitty books.
Click to expand...

Didn't it end up with a giant leading the Thailand army against India or something?
 
GDJustin said:
This is a good point. Ender's game is great, but resist the urge to read the sequels. The first sequel (Speaker for the Dead) is decent, but the rest are honestly AWFUL.

Like... I'm an easy man to please. There's very few books in general I can genuinely say I didn't like. And man... those were some shitty books.
Click to expand...

I liked Speaker for the dead and thought what a neat sci-fi concept.. then I dated a Mormon girl and found out that wasn't really sci-fi after all :lol
 
Blackace said:
the series will try to convert you...
Click to expand...
Seriously. I made it through Speaker for the Dead, which was okay, and Xenocide, which was less than okay, but by Children of the Mind, the proselytizing was taking up 100% of the text. I quit after like 40 pages.

And of course, on top of the rampant religious bullshit, now he's a hardcore neocon writing fantasies of the righteous defending America from liberal revolutionaries.

Ender's Game is still fun, or at least it was when I was a young teen. Not sure if it'd hold up as an adult.
 
Knowing that I'm 24 and a friend my age re-reads it and considers it his favorite book, I know it is intended for MUCH younger audiences. (he's not on the sharp end of the scale)
 
M3wThr33 said:
Knowing that I'm 24 and a friend my age re-reads it and considers it his favorite book, I know it is intended for MUCH younger audiences. (he's not on the sharp end of the scale)
Click to expand...

nothing wrong with that...Harry Potter isn't exactly War and Peace
 
Ventrue said:
Didn't it end up with a giant leading the Thailand army against India or something?
Click to expand...
You're thinking of Shadow of the Giant, Bean's storyline.

Ender's Game is good, Ender's Shadow is better.
 
Brilliant book. Has a lot of stuff that wouldn't mean anything to younger audiences. Deals with very adult themes, but remains accessible to younger audiences.

Anybody who compares Ender's Game to Harry Potter is a fucking idiot.
 
Ventrue said:
I'm not sure, but I do know that Orson Scott Card should've ended that series after the first book. He wrote what, 12 books in that universe?
Click to expand...


Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide are both better books than Ender's Game so I don't see how you can say he should had ended the series after 1 book.
 
i can't vouch for the other books in the series, but as many have already said in this thread, speaker for the dead and ender's shadow (bean!) were both very good.
 
Excellent series. It is not a children's book by any means, just a highly accessible, but very intelligent sci-fi novel.

I had read all but Children of the mind back in middle school (not a knock on the reading level of the series, I actually read more intelligent books back then than I do now) and picked up Ender's Shadow cheap a few years ago. I finally got around to reading it some months back and followed it up with the rest of the Bean series.

The sequels to Ender's game and Ender's Shadow both veer somewhat from the topics of the first storyline, but all are quite good and definitely worth reading.
 
Halycon said:
Ender's Game is good, Ender's Shadow is better.
Click to expand...

This man's got good tastes

I liked ES better because I thought Bean was so much more realistic than Ender. The problem I had with Ender was that he was too perfect - it came across as phoney. Bean was much more "human". The only thing I didn't like about it was all the Ender worship in the middle of the book. Actually though it made me appreciate EG a lot more - not that I didn't really enjoy EG - but ES made me realise what was so special about the books
 
9-12 seems a bit low. I enjoyed it as a teenager but I don't know how well it holds up as an adult.
 
I started reading at a real young age. By age 8 I was reading James Michener's Hawaii in about a week. So even if I'm not the perfect judge of these things I'd say that Ender's Game is more appropriate for the middle school and up set usually, at least that's where I think I first remember seeing other kids reading it. Though adults clearly get more out of it.
 
I read it in the 5th grade the first time I read it. I think a lot of kids read it then because of the setting and characters but there was a lot of stuff that didn't make more sense until I was older.
 
I think it feels like it's aimed to teenagers (not 'children'), but can definitely be enjoyed by adults, it's a very fun book. I read it at 12 BTW.
 
Blackace said:
if that was all the book was about you'd have a point..
Click to expand...
No point, just a joke. I'm curious what actually is Mormon-related, though? I've read theories about Ender as a Hitler figure, but I don't think I've heard this angle.
 
I read it just last year (at 18) after not knowing anything about it previously. I though it was a good read, but I wouldn't say it was targeted for children. I did try to read the sequals to Ender's Game, but I just couldn't get into them.
 
genjiZERO said:
This man's got good tastes

I liked ES better because I thought Bean was so much more realistic than Ender. The problem I had with Ender was that he was too perfect - it came across as phoney. Bean was much more "human". The only thing I didn't like about it was all the Ender worship in the middle of the book. Actually though it made me appreciate EG a lot more - not that I didn't really enjoy EG - but ES made me realise what was so special about the books
Click to expand...


I don't like the Bean books. I mean they're ok, but Card going back and re-telling the story with Bean playing a bigger role just bugs me. Ender was and is the focus of the series, he's the guy that got things done. The fact that he tried to give Bean this major role in the outcome based on one-line he used in the original Ender's Game book seemed shallow to me.
 
Manics said:
Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide are both better books than Ender's Game so I don't see how you can say he should had ended the series after 1 book.
Click to expand...

nighttime_stories.jpg

Cue angry letters from all seven fans of Xenocide
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
No point, just a joke. I'm curious what actually is Mormon-related, though? I've read theories about Ender as a Hitler figure, but I don't think I've heard this angle.
Click to expand...

I don't remember Ender being particularly Mormon influenced (although Ender's Mom is LDS). The Alvinmaker and Memory of Earth books are more obvious in their influences.
 
bluemax said:
I don't remember Ender being particularly Mormon influenced
Click to expand...
As another person who read it while they were Mormon, same here. I'll have to re-read both the Ender and Bean series to see if I can pick up on that now, but I loved them in early high school.

And for all the Xenocide hate, the one thing I remember disliking about it was the boring-ass sublot with the Asian OCD girl (am I remembering this right?).
 
Ford Prefect said:
As another person who read it while they were Mormon, same here. I'll have to re-read both the Ender and Bean series to see if I can pick up on that now, but I loved them in early high school.

And for all the Xenocide hate, the one thing I remember disliking about it was the boring-ass sublot with the Asian OCD girl (am I remembering this right?).
Click to expand...

Yeah that's the one. I remember reading it but that book was pretty plodding. Speaker for the Dead was a lot better.
 
bluemax said:
I don't remember Ender being particularly Mormon influenced (although Ender's Mom is LDS). The Alvinmaker and Memory of Earth books are more obvious in their influences.
Click to expand...

I know shit all about the book of Mormon, so when I read the Homecoming series (Memory of Earth etc) I thought it was awesome awesome sci fi. I've read reports though that it's straight from the book of Mormon though. :lol

I agree with those praising the Bean saga. Shadow of the Giant (the last book in the shadow series) is my favourite book of all time alongside the original Ender's Game.

If you can trudge through the opening of Xenocide, which is VERY slow, it become a brilliant book and probably the best out of the three Ender-based sequels. Children of the Mind is pretty boring though.
 
I picked up Ender's Game without knowing anything about it yesterday and will likely be getting around to reading it in the next month or two. What order does the series go in, and what other Orson Scott Card books are worth checking out? Sounds like he's a fairly polarizing author.
 
Socreges said:
This may be and likely is a blasphemous question, but I just want to make sure...

Apparently it's from the perspective of a six-year-old and I saw on one site that it is for ages "9-12". I was thinking it may have been so popular because many of you read it at a young age.

I hope I've just been misled. I'd love to read it so long as it's not too ... adolescent...
Click to expand...
It was originally intended for adults, it gained huge popularity among children, and got republished under a children's label. Some hardcore shit goes down in this book, you needn't worry it's fairly mature.
 
The original book is, the rest of the Ender saga isn't really.

(btwI liked xenocide the best :lol , although speaker is pretty close)
 
i read it at age 25 or so for the first time

it's basically the male version of the pretty princess fantasy that young girls harbor. they just KNOW they're actually a princess and that they're special and one day someone's going to scoop them up and take them to their magical castle and they'll get a pony and everyone will love them.

instead it's a boy who kills and hurts and excels at military school and he gets a friend and everyone loves him (except for the mean ol' bullies who just don't understand how special he is!)
 
Alucard said:
I picked up Ender's Game without knowing anything about it yesterday and will likely be getting around to reading it in the next month or two. What order does the series go in, and what other Orson Scott Card books are worth checking out? Sounds like he's a fairly polarizing author.
Click to expand...

After the first book it splits into two lines, one following Ender and another following another character.

I suggest you read it as follows: Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and then Children of the Mind.
 
Scullibundo said:
After the first book it splits into two lines, one following Ender and another following another character.

I suggest you read it as follows: Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and then Children of the Mind.
Click to expand...

If I like Ender's Game, I'll definitely at least check out another book or two in the series.

Is that the order the books were written?
 
sorry, but it is most definitely a children's/young adult novel.

and strictly from a publisher's standpoint, it is without a doubt a novel for younger readers due to its accessibility and content
 
Alucard said:
If I like Ender's Game, I'll definitely at least check out another book or two in the series.

Is that the order the books were written?
Click to expand...
No that's the chronological order.

If I recall correctly, Card wrote the Ender books first and then penned Beans story in the Shadow books.
 
Alucard said:
Is that the order the books were written?
Click to expand...
Not the order they were written, but that's loosely chronological. The writing order was
Ender's Game -> Speaker for the Dead -> Xenocide -> Children of the Mind, at which point he looped back and focused on a secondary character from the first book and did Ender's Shadow -> Shadow of the Hegemon -> Shadow Puppets -> Shadow of the Giant.
 
Halycon said:
No that's the chronological order.

If I recall correctly, Card wrote the Ender books first and then penned Beans story in the Shadow books.
Click to expand...

Okay, so...I'm guessing the chronological order is the better way to go. That's if I get around to reading more of the series beyond Ender's Game. Right now I'm in the midst of hot robot-on-human sex, and dad-on-daughter incest in the middle of Isaac Asimov's The Robots of Dawn. Seriously, did not see this coming after the first two books in the series. @_@ I'm slightly disturbed and even turned off, but just passed the midway mark, so I have to finish.
 
When you read it young... it's awesome 'cause it's the ultimate little boy's fantasy.

When you read it when you're older... it's still awesome because of the themes, (and it's still the ultimate little boy's fantasy).

When I got older though, I did happen to find a greater appreciation for Speaker for the Dead which I think is the best book in the series.
 
I finished this book off today and thought I would type up some thoughts while they're still fresh in my mind...

I was initially put off by Ender's Game. I appreciated the ideas it was tackling: the isolation of military training, breaking down the individual, creating killing machines out of children, and manipulating and molding young minds. However, Card's prose did not win me over. I still dislike the overuse of the word "fart" throughout this book, but despite feeling fairly lukewarm towards it for the majority of the story, it completely won me over with its final 100 pages or so. Not only speaking of human choice and the plight of gifted youngsters, by the end the entire book opens up and becomes a tract on understanding, communication, and atonement. I do not claim to fully understand all of the issues this book brings up, but I can say that regardless of what feelings it brings out in the reader, it is a trip well worth taking. And if you find yourself wondering what the big deal is as you get through the first two-thirds of the book, please see it through until the end. Highly recommended.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Amazon banned a book, it is now in the top 5 best seller list
2
55
872
delirium trigger replied
I need your opinions... I'm writing a book
34
750
DeafTourette replied
Utah woman who wrote a children’s book about dealing with grief after her husband’s death has been sentenced to life in prison for his murder
2
52
479
roosnam1980 replied
Collective Shout celebrates Age Verification for porn in Australia: 'For the Children'
Social 
4
329
Banjo64 replied
SNL UK is now a thing
43
456
jufonuk replied
Top Bottom