I had read Orson Scott Card's Mithermage Series in 2015 (see https://timsbestreads.blogspot.com/p/i-read-available-mithermage-stories-way.html) and found the final book of the series rather disappointing, so I was in two minds as to whether I would read more of his books.
I did relent in 2022, reading the Pathfinder Series, which I found excellent
I was flying to Darwin in October 2022 and swapping favourite fantasy sci-fi authors with the couple next to me, when Ender's Game was recommended. I wrote the name down in the Notes section of my iphone and then forgot all about it. It was in January 2023 that I found my note and sourced an epub version that I could read in kindle on my phone (as I was away from home at the time).
I whipped through the book in 3 days and found it a superb read. Here's the blurb.
Andrew "Ender" Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy all human life. The only way to find out is to throw Ender into ever harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when it begins. He will grow up fast. But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway almost as long.
The character starts the story at age 6 and the story ends when he is aged 13. I feel it would have been a big more realistic if he had started at age 8 or 10, so that his level of maturity is more understandable. I don't think it would have made any real difference to the story but it would have rung truer to me.
But overall, a great read. I particularly liked the last couple of chapters which fast forwarded to the aftermath of the war with the Buggers and sets the scene for the sequel Speaker for the Dead.
Card is the first and (as of 2022) only person to win both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for both his novel Ender's Game (1985) and its sequel Speaker for the Dead (1986).
I have now started to read Speaker for the Dead.
There are some 18 books in the Ender Universe, but I doubt if I will continue past the first two. There is so much else to read and they do seem to be the ones which get the best accolades.
There is also a TV series, of which I was not aware.
On a personal level, he would not be among my favourites list for dinner. His support of Trump and his right wing policies and his anti-gay stance over the years do not endear him on a personal level. But he does write good books!
Card is a prolific author (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card_bibliography) and his bibliography is enormous.
