Return to Enderverse

(Still waiting for ReaderCon pictures for my ReaderCon post, so here’s a roundup of some Ender Saga books in the meantime).

After ReaderCon and dinner last Saturday, I went to watch Ender’s Game on IMAX with Flipper friends Joko, Jeeves, Vlad, Art and Mike. I’d been looking forward to watching it ever since it was announced, and while it was a spectacular visual feast, I think I’d have enjoyed it more if I had not read the books. I just felt it was rushed, trying to compress everything in one film, and it glossed over key moments in Battle School which showed how Ender rose through the ranks and gradually earned the respect of his peers.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card was the best book I read in 2012 – I brought it along on a trip to Sagada, started reading (with a book light!) it in the van as everyone started drifting off to sleep, and I literally could not put it down, zigzags and all. I distinctly remember a moment of panic: the van hit a rut and I lurched forward, knocking off my book lamp somewhere on the floor. Everyone else was asleep and the space was too cramped for me to go crawling around for the book light, so I was euphoric when, minutes later, the van climbed uphill and the book light came rolling back towards me (Success! And yes, a van making its way through a zigzag road poses no impediment to my reading).

 If you haven’t read it yet, Ender’s Game is a novel that takes place in an earth that is at war with an insectoid alien species, the Formics (in slang, Buggers). Anticipating a third strike from the Buggers, a peace agreement was struck among the Earth’s ruling bodies (the Hegemon, the Polemarch, and Strategos), and an International Fleet was established to protect the planet from attack. Young children, the best among the best on Earth (Ender included), are sent up to a special school in space, to train them for future combat against alien invaders (there, spoiler free!).

I co-moderated the Flips Flipping Pages discussion of Ender’s Game early this year with Dianne and Shani, and it was quite insightful. For one, when I picked up the book originally, I had no idea about the author or his controversial political views, especially his stance against homosexuality. Which led to a whole discussion on whether or not we should separate a writer from his/her body of work – fitting for a book that revolves around moral dilemma, I thought.

While I do not agree with or support Orson Scott Card’s ideologies, I do believe Ender’s Game is excellent science fiction not only because it’s such a compelling read, but also in the sense that it raises a lot of philosophical questions on the nature of good and evil, war, humanity, society and the younger generation, and compassion.

We had the discussion at Powerbooks Greenbelt (thank you, Powerbooks/NBS), played a huge Ender’s Game board game that Shani developed, had an Ender-themed feast (in true FFP fashion: star-shaped sandwiches, Bean dip, Giant’s Drink — that sort of thing, haha!), and got engrossed in the many points for discussion inspired by the book.

Battle Room board game

Ender’s Loot

Food from the Mess Hall

Deep in thought

Aside from Ender’s Game, I’ve also read three other books from the Ender Saga this year:

First Meetings. I actually read this four-story compilation many years ago, long before I read the novel. There are two stories on Ender’s parents: “The Polish Boy” and “Teacher’s Pest,” “Ender’s Game” in its original short story form, and “Investment Counselor,” an Ender story set after the events in Ender’s Game.

The first time I read it (before I read the novel), I found the first two stories quite interesting, but the “Ender’s Game” short story (1977) was mostly inside the Battle Room and it threw me off. I read it again earlier this year, in preparation for the discussion, and now that I could place everything in its proper context, it was definitely more satisfying.

“The Polish Boy” features Ender’s father, John Paul, as a child, and his testing by the International Fleet, while “Teacher’s Pest” shows a college-age John Paul meeting student-teacher Theresa Brown, who would become Ender’s mother. The two stories provide a background on how Ender, a third child, came to be, and why he is particularly significant to the International Fleet (as well as Hyrum Graff). (P.S. “Teacher’s Pest” is also a short but sweet love story, I think, in case anyone’s interested!).

Reading Ender’s Game as a short story is also a must, as it is the foundation of the series, though not technically a part of the canon. “Investment Banker” is an interesting follow-up, too, showing a 20-year old Ender landing on the planet Sorelledolce to file his first income tax return on the trust fund the International Fleet has set up for him, and eventually falls into a new career.

Ender’s Shadow. After I read Ender’s Game, so many people recommended reading “Ender’s Shadow,” which is a parallel novel written many years after Ender’s Game. I finally got ahold of a copy this year, and read it on an out of town trip this summer.

Ender’s Shadow is essentially the same story as Ender’s Game, but told from the point of view of Bean, the smallest child in Battle School who would eventually become part of Dragon Army and Ender’s inner circle. Reading it is a fairly unique experience, especially since Bean is such a quirky character, a genius in a tiny body.

From the moment Bean steps into Battle School, he is fascinated by Ender and watches Ender obsessively, even though he makes no move to make his presence known to the other boy. Bean and Ender’s paths inevitably cross, and Bean literally becomes Ender’s Shadow, quietly playing a crucial role in Ender’s journey through Battle School and later on in Command School. While all this unfolds, Bean also makes his way through his own personal struggles, towards self-discovery, unlocking the secrets of his identity and overcoming his built-in defenses against friendship, family, and ultimately, love.

While I’m still partial to Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow is no less compelling, offering a fresh take on a story that the reader already knows, and yet it fills in gaps that the reader didn’t even know existed. It solidifies the canon of the first novel and extends the Ender experience — definitely a must-read for anyone who enjoyed Ender’s Game.

(That said, I hope they make an Ender’s Shadow movie).

A War of Gifts. I chanced upon a signed first edition of this novella from an online seller, but I only remembered to dig it up again from the TBR hoard this year.

Set in Battle School, we see familiar faces such as Dink Meeker, Rose de Nose, Crazy Tom, and of course, Ender Wiggin, who has just transferred to Rat Army. The main character in the story, though, is a boy called Zeck Morgan, a fundamentalist Christian and pacifist who gets sent to Battle School but refuses to take part in the training in the hopes that get iced.

In spite of the rules against religious observance at Battle School, a student decides to leave a Sinterklaas present in his best friend’s shoe, which starts a whole Santa Claus gift-giving phase. Zeck perceives this as a practice of religion, and because he is not allowed to practice his own religion, he decides to take matters into his own hands and starts a battle of wills among the diverse religious groups in Battle School.

While I welcomed the return to Battle School (my favorite part of all of Enderverse) and I imagine many Ender fans did too in 2007 when this novella was released, the story felt quite disjointed to me. I did like the way the students rallied for Santa Claus, but that was the book’s strongest point — Zeck is difficult to like as a character, Ender seems to have grown a halo on his head, and the novella starts off a religious debate but doesn’t really touch on the heart of the issue so it’s not entirely clear what OSC was driving at. There’s also a weird chapter featuring Peter Wiggin and his mother, which, while well-written, doesn’t appear to have any bearing on the rest of the story. While only a little over a hundred pages, it was hard to get through this clunky book, thank goodness for all the bits with Dink Meeker (I love Dink now!) and Hyrum Graff that made it a little more bearable.

There are a lot of other novels in the Ender Saga, though I’ve heard they’re hit and miss. If you’ve read any outside these four and would like to recommend one, do let me know. I’d like to read more of this series if there are any more novels like Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow.

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Book discussion photos by Dianne Singson.

Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow, First Meetings, A War of Gifts, and other Ender Saga books are available at National Book Store.