After our spate of Gaiman novels I decided to go for more classic science fiction as a change of pace. Ender's Game was my pick for the next book to read to Boen at night. I remember the book being very exciting and a lot of fun, but on this re-read, what I realized was that the book doesn't actually spend as much time in the battle room as I remembered! Instead, there's actually a ton of time spent on the Giant's Drink virtual reality game, and on the social interaction aspect of the kids.
There's also a good deal of time spent considering the population growth problem (which at the time of the book's writing look insoluble), which contrasts very much with the (over-hyped) hand-wringing over the coming reduction of human populations. Similarly, the book is stuck in the 1970s where the eastern European bloc was seen as the counter-point to the American hegemony. Who says fiction doesn't get outdated?
Nevertheless, the writing is compelling enough to hold Boen's attention, and the story and conceit is just as compelling as ever. Theories of childhood development have changed quite a bit since the book was written, but on the other hand, agree with Orson Scott Card's stance that people regularly under-estimate how much kids can do, especially when properly motivated.
The impact of the ending of the book feels much more diminished now than it did when I first read the book --- I guess knowing that Card turned this into a nearly 10 book series now makes you feel like this is a setup for a bunch of sequels. I remember reading some of the sequels and they weren't nearly as good or exciting as Ender's Game was, so I'm probably going to stop reading this to Boen after this one book.
Regardless, it's still a great book, and I plan to watch the movie with Boen after this reading. Recommended.
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