Ender's Game/Ender Series by Orson Scott Card

[Thorazine Shuffle]

Has anyone read these books? It's a series I'm really enjoying so far, because it provides a lot of action, but mixes in a lot of food for thought in a way that isn't cliched or hamfisted. I've only finished the first two novels (out of the four original ones), and they're very different books, but the way they lock together creates some of the best fiction I've ever read.

Here's a summary of the first book from Amazon:

Intense is the word for Ender's Game. Aliens have attacked Earth twice and almost destroyed the human species. To make sure humans win the next encounter, the world government has taken to breeding military geniuses -- and then training them in the arts of war... The early training, not surprisingly, takes the form of 'games'... Ender Wiggin is a genius among geniuses; he wins all the games... He is smart enough to know that time is running out. But is he smart enough to save the planet?

[Devilkitty]

I read Ender's Game back in 1990.

(click to show/hide)

Let's use and abuse the smart kid 'til the dirty work is finished.
Doesn't matter what it does to him, as long as we get what we want and have our fun.

That hit a little too close to home for me to read more of the series.

Mrs Devilkitty has read them all; she tells me that the later books got strange (not the good kind).

[Thorazine Shuffle]

I read Ender's Game back in 1990.

(click to show/hide)

Let's use and abuse the smart kid 'til the dirty work is finished.
Doesn't matter what it does to him, as long as we get what we want and have our fun.

That hit a little too close to home for me to read more of the series.

Mrs Devilkitty has read them all; she tells me that the later books got strange (not the good kind).

I've heard that too. I think OSC changed his writing style a lot over the years between the sequels, so that might explain it. I'm still waiting for the third book to come in the mail though, so I can't say right now how strange it got.

But, without giving too much away, the second novel is kind of his absolution, how we works to make sense of what happened in the first book, and find a cause to try and make up for it. It's touching to see that even someone in his extraordinary circumstances can redeem themselves, so you might want to give the second book a try.

[Marissa The Air Head]

Yeah! I've read the Ender series and Ender's Shadow (about Bean), still haven't started the rest of the Shadow books...
I don't know. They do get rather odd, but I liked Xenocide. I read it when I was like 13 and it took me forever...the ideas start to get ridiculously complex.