| At Battle School, the war games are everything to the kids at the school. Their lives revolve around playing those games, and so the meaning of the word itself shifts from a voluntary fun experience to a necessary and crucial aspect of life. Those games and their implications caused a fellow student, Bonzo's, death and created rancor and jealousy throughout the school. In the first invasion, the buggers, an alien species, had attacked Earth and devastatingly wiped out almost the whole population of the human species due to the Homo sapiens' lack of technology. Then in the second invasion, the buggers, yet again, severely decreased Earth's population, but not as much as the first. Now, it's the third invasion, and the humans aren't taking any more chances. Because of a deficiency of knowledge caused by the impossibility of communicating with another species, the humans are afraid that the buggers will destroy them. So in an act of fear, they decide to wipe out the buggers before the buggers can wipe the humans out. As a result, the international military forces are picking child geniuses to be the commander of the Third Invasion.
And who did they pick? Ender Wiggin, a boy whose brilliance never ceases to cause resentment. Ender Wiggin, the third in a family of child geniuses, was the chosen one. His older brother, Peter, who later controls the world, was not chosen for he was not compassionate enough while his older sister, Valentine, the later widely-known political writer, was not chosen for she was too compassionate. So naturally, Ender was the one. Each child chosen was to attend special schools in space to learn how to become the best possible leaders they can be. During Ender's remarkable progression through Battle School and Command School, he plays games that become debilitating to Ender's health. He can't sleep, he barely eats, and he is forced to be a leader and not a friend to those whom he cares for. Ender destroys the buggers because he wants the games to end for good, and he is successful, but if he had ever known that it was not a game he never would have participated. | ||
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Plot & Themes Tone of book - depressing/sad FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION? - science fiction story Coming of age Yes Youngster becomes - great warrior Training/Apprent. Yes Working up the ranks of... If an invasion, from Earth/human POV: - fighting overt invasion (attacking aliens) War or Invasion Yes Major kinds of combat: - lasers Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book Descript. of chases or violence - 30 % planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 30 % Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 30 % Descript. of society, phenomena (tech), places - 10 % Main Character Identity: - Male Profession/status: Age: - a kid Really unusual traits? Main Adversary Identity: - An "It". Age: - long-lived adults Profession/status: Eccentric: Yes How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - an average amount Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters Setting Terrain Takes place in spaceship? Yes Not Earth, in Solar System? Yes Writing Style scientific jargon? (SF only) - a fair amount of scientific explanation How much dialogue? - significantly more descript than dialog |
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