Ender's Game

Note that this review may contain spoilers.

I have often heard people talk about this book, how they liked it, how it inspired them, and that is what I had in mind when I picked it up from the local WaldenBooks. I knew that his simulations were real battles from a blog post I read but I didn't realize all that entailed...

Exposition: The beginning of each chapter starts with a small conversation between two people, just dialogue, no tags. In the beginning you have no idea who these people are, but what they say draws you in. Who are they talking about? What is he being chosen for? What went wrong with the brother, the sister? What are they talking about?

Next, we are introduced to Ender, the main character, as he is getting his monitor taken off. We then learn that Ender is a Third, and picked on for it. Immediately after coming back from getting his monitor removed, a team of boys gangs up on him. He then beats their leader, Stilston, to a pulp, determining the place at the Battle School which his brother, Peter, and sister, Valentine, could not achieve.

Rising Action: At Battle School, Ender is immediately set apart from the other boys by the teachers. On top of that, Bernard, a boy in Ender's launch, is out for revenge on Ender for breaking his arm. Other such problems follow. As soon as Ender gets comfortable something changes: he is moved into an army, he becomes a commander, he is advanced to Command school. All in effort to get him ready to defeat the buggers. The whole time he worries, is he truly like his brother Peter, a killer, a murderer? Conflict is rich throughout this story.

Climax: I was waiting for what happened next. When Ender walked into the simulator for his final exam, and they informed him there was a planet, I knew the end of the war was near. I knew, but Ender didn't. And when he learns that he wiped out the whole bugger race, he feels betrayed, betrayed and worn out emotionally. Wouldn't you be? Yes, you would. That there is what makes him a realistic character.

Falling Action/Resolution: They have decided that Ender is too dangerous to go back to earth, so Valentine convinces him to come with her to colonize one of the now empty bugger planets. While ther, Ender discovers that the buggers left behind a single queen and he swears to find them a few place to live, to reproduce. And I've heard that that is what the sequels are all about.